The last few days of 2022 and I’m fleeting between needing rest and feeling restless to plan how I am going to maximize my next year.

I feel like in 2021 this has been my ‘always state’, playing tug of war between:

trying to rest, and trying to grow
wanting to chill out, and wanting to use every second of my free time
spending quality time with my kids, and doing chores for them
wanting to sleep and wanting to stay fit
wanting to eat clean and wanting to eat every morsel of Christmas pudding!

In playing this constant tug of war in my mind, I end up hanging somewhere in the middle which leaves me nowhere. And also exhausted.

Seneca’s quote “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable,” rings true to me here.

So, I think for 2022 when I do things, I need to be more intentional about by actions.

If the intention is not to be exhausted, I need to prioritize rest.

If the intention is more quality time with my daughter, then I need to put errands for them that can wait aside and choose an activity to do with her instead.

With that in mind, here are a few things I’m going to try to do to be more intentional in 2022:

Saying no to others to create more time for myself:

We often end up saying yes to many things we don’t need to or want to say yes to. I’m guilty of this at my work more than anything else. This ends up costing me precious time I don’t have. Ryan Holiday writes very well about the cost of saying yes, which can be a lot more than we realize.

Outside of work, since I’ve had kids, saying no comes easily to me because I am genuinely so time poor. However, I need to learn to say no to many things I ask of myself so I can really hone into what I say yes to.

A good friend of mine once said to me, every decision is a sacrifice. In other words, saying no to one thing is saying yes to something else. Once you process this, the decisions you need to take become clearer.

A reminder from Seneca on the value of our time: No person hands out their money to passers-by, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.

Investing time and money with more intention:

This year I enrolled in many online courses: Idea to Income; Wealthcodes; Smart from Scratch; List Builders Society; Course by Number; Printable by Number; Time Collapse; Writer’s Summit; Writers Email List Playbook; Digital Course for Passive Income; Neuroscience for Parents; Fitness & Nutrition 101 with a coach; the Next Chapter (starts today!).

I also paid for newsletters that enrich my mind: Femstreet; Farnam Street; The Profile; The Motley Fool.

I signed up for tools to help me organize my tasks and my mind: Asana; Evernote; Roam Research.

I found Jennifer Roskamp of the Intentional Mom, a mom of 9 (yes N-I-N-E!) children. If she can organize her time and run a 7-figure business teaching others how to do it, everyone can!

(*Links to everything are listed at the end of article)

I have learnt SO much and I’m so glad I made all these investments; I hope to channel whatever I have learned to you via this newsletter.

However, I made them with no true direction or goal but purely to learn and open my mind.

In 2022, I hope to invest my time and energy with more intention so that there is an actual outcome.

Letting go of things I cannot control:

As a working mum of two toddlers, there is always something that comes in the way of a plan. Kids get sick; I have to work late; my mum gets sick; I get sick (so much flu this year!); my kids take 2 hours to sleep instead of 15 minutes; ah, so many things.

I can get upset because of these occurrences as they get in the way of my ‘plan’, or I can embrace them and take them in my stride, reorganize my plan but keep the intention.

Doing less, but doing it better:

I am notorious for signing up for too much. I just love doing different things all the time, however this often results in doing many things half-way and not getting anywhere. In 2022 I want to focus on doing less, but doing it well.

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I often judge myself when I haven’t ‘achieved’ much in a day, month or year. I recently heard a podcast with Kate Northrup, entrepreneur, bestselling author, speaker, and mother, where she said, next time you judge yourself on the basis of what you have done in the day, ask yourself how you felt instead of how much you got done.

So, as we enter 2022, let’s be kinder to ourselves, be more intentional with our time, and judge our days on the basis of how we feel, not what we have achieved.

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Working Mums Club

Priority for 2022: Being intentional