time is going too fast this year. already we are one week away from the third month! the third month of the year already I tell you. I somehow felt we should still be in January now.

I have put my whole heart mind and energy into my job and have some sense of work life balance as well. certain things I need to learn for now after two months of fast going routine.

1) I need to learn to let go. let go and let other people take the lead. because otherwise I am always anxious. learn to have full faith and tawakkal that whenever I am not around, things will go as it should be. it will be OK. I have to believe in it. it is all in the mind really. If I don’t learn to let go and let others lead, I am going to be stressed out and probably get high blood pressure, because that is how I am feeling these weeks.

2) Learn to be less serious. this has a lot to do with controlling how I react to situations. its either I take it positively and take it less personal or I start blaming myself and feel all negative about it. I used to be able to only see the positive sides of things, but being where I am now, I do have to be critical about things sometimes because otherwise we cannot learn. it is all about feedback. but it is also a balance of circle of control and circle of influence. there you go, some nlp and 7 habits practised together.

3) the planner works like….heaven!! I love my weekly planner and it has been my bff ever since. after trying out so many apps on productivity, I knew I am still a paper and pen person. it puts things more in perspective of what I am expected to do, help me to compartmentalise my work, family and personal life. made it more obvious and the magic of writing it down – it is a commitment. thank you Kikki K for just the right kind of journal I needed. it is just the simplicity and its functionality. ‘decorating’ it is not my priority, it’s more of impromptu-ness. some coloured pens and highlighters is all it needs. although i do have the life stickers that come with the journal, some small cute stamps i bought and i finally found a habit tracker that is not an app! its just an added on small piece of paper that i was able to paste at the corner of each week. i love it. everything i need in a journal.

4) i learnt that there’s only so much we can do in a day. the first few weeks of the year, i would be writing down a whole list of tasks i need to do for the DAY, but i realised, at the speed rate of work i am doing, i only managed to cross out a few items and have to bring forward the rest to the next day, to which, i had initially list other tasks. so apart from organizing my workload into days, like Mondays for research like and Tuesdays for paperworks, i decided that i can only achieve to complete three tasks only in a day. 1 major tasks and two additional somewhat minor tasks. because otherwise, i got stuck doing one thing and i cannot move on doing other pending tasks. already my job sometimes take a lot of time such as fee chasing and data records, which requires me to be meticulous. and then i don’t do other stuffs like lesson overviews and lesson planning. so yea, learn to let go (item 1) and accept that i can only do three tasks in a day. not more than that. so far, there has not been an idle day in my weeks now.

5) time is of major important factor in all this planning. and the power of foreseeing how much time you need to do a task or a meeting or whatever it is, is indeed very powerful. i have always trusted my time-thinking instinct and i am going to continue to do that. like when i know i have to chair a meeting, i projected my mind that this meeting is going to take only an hour. an hour it will indeed take. perhaps an extra 15 minutes allowance, but somehow i manage to stick to the time. if i have to attend a meeting, than usually that will take two hours max, so i will plan out my day to work around that two hours meeting and list out tasks which are manageable and doesn’t require much brainstorming or decision making. because after a meeting, depending on its subject at hand, i can get very brain drained. plan your time. it works wonders.

6) it has become a bit more easier to switch from my conscious mind to the unconscious. especially when i have a goal to achieve or something i really need to complete or accomplish. writing it down is the visual aspect of motivation. but the unconscious mind has a bigger role in making it happen. the belief that i can make it happen. it takes a while and some practice but i believe it is better for me now. it gives me that mind-nudge to just do it and follow through. same thing with the teachers when i do my contact time with them. key word. follow through.

7) and that brings me to one last thing. communicate. communicate. communicate. make time to communicate. with the teachers, full time or part time, i need to make that effort to ask how’s it going. because then that is one way to follow through. and i am teaching myself to take any setback or feedback or challenge as a positive thing that makes our worklife more exciting.

if i am down, there is no reason for my teachers to get that vibe and having that heavy hearted and down feeling as well. even if it is a mask, i will try to make myself feel better and see all these as the colours and spices of the worklife.

and my unconscious mind is set on becoming a good wife too this 2015! planning planning planning. and follow through.