Making ONE small change

December 29, 2022

So this is Twixmas (starts swaying to the imaginary tones of John Lennon in my head) and my twitchy little fingers that always want to be DOING something join up with the constant monologue in my head and between them they decide to revamp the whole house/life/wardrobe/marketing plan for my business. 

Well, this HAS been Twimasses past, but I've learned to calm that chatter by focusing on one thing, and doing it well. 

I indulge in a few days of watching trashy Christmas movies and having nothing but cheese for dinner. Then I think about the two or three things that have grated on me in the previous year (or sometimes three) and tackle it. 

Two years ago it was the constant hunting for my car keys that drove me insane. there seemed to be a "drop zone" on the hallway table where everything got dumped. Keys, laundry that was waiting to go upstairs, charity bags, random bits of Lego, and bills from HMRC that remained unseen until well past the deadline. Oops.

It was the nudge I needed to finally design and create our key and letter rack that now finally graces our wall. Made from scratch by Team Betsy Benn in our Cheltenham, studios, the sustainable cherry wood veneer looks beautiful against my blue wall. It has a magnet for each set of keys and a thin letter rack behind so that newly arrived post has a place to go and not be lost forever. 

I can't truthfully say that there's no Lego on that hallway table anymore, but I did find that adding tall candlesticks to the table, kind of minimised the dumping ground effect!

Now my favourite mini organisation jobs for this time of year is filling out the new wall planner. All the birthdays, anniversaries, and events already booked get written in. Birthdays in ink, and events in pencil - you never know what will come along to knock an event off track, but a person's birthday is their birthday no matter what!

For my 2023 planner I'll also be adding Ben's GCSE schedule and results date - and hopefully some time away somewhere between those two dates. 

I always supersize our paint chip wall planner and go for the A2 sheets option. This size, when all displayed together, creates an extra large wall planner that is A0 in size. I like plenty of space to write in the things I need to remember and I like to be able to see it from across the room.

It's quite a mindful thing for me to start planning out the shape of the year. An undulating curve of the peak busy weeks and the quieter weeks. Knowing when I'm likely to be busy lets me find time to build up to the busy and time to wind down after, even if that's just a day or two. At least I know to put them aside and not plan a massive social event for the same time as a big work week!

Whether you use your Twixmas for picking one project to make a small improvement to life, or stick with the sofa and cheese, I wish you a very peaceful end to 2022 and a bright start for 2023.

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