Year: 2010

sunday life: in which I hire a virtual assistant

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This week I hire a Virtual Assistant in India (and, no, the picture below has nothing to do with Virtual Assistants, or India, but is an image of what I’d like to have more time for once I’ve successfully delegated stuff I hate doing ).sartorialist-paris-lunch

I tell you, VAs are the PTs of the new millennium. Ten years ago we took to delegating our weight loss to personal trainers. Soon enough they became part of the fabric of life, popping up at clients’ dinner parties and dating their friends. Now it’s all about delegating our administrative clutter to a remote assistant. Or so I’m learning.

Every productivity guru and self-help blog I encounter advocates hiring one of these faceless helpers to coordinate travel itineraries, answer emails and organise the kids’ swimming lessons…all from a cubicle in Bangalore.

Admittedly I don’t know anyone in Australia who uses a VA. I think it’s because we feel quite puncy offloading our detritus to others. I mean, who admits to having a pool cleaner?

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have a sweet weekend: 26 March xox

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A very quick one because I’m about to jump in the car and drive South for my Uncle Pete’s funeral at Broulee. His ashes are being scattered out to sea, which is where he lived most of his life (he was a prawn trawlerer and surfboard shaper and dude who got shipwrecked and attacked by sharks). Big. And Sad. And Full of Life…

But a few little things of joy and interest:

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1. This little poppet and her bunny ears, for sale (the ears) from Les Zigouis.

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greeting e-cards: four really good ones to send with love now. Just because…

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There’s no special occassion looming; all the better for sending an e-card to someone who just matters to you right now. E-cards are ace. So long as they don’t involve a dancing elf. They cut down on paper, save energy costs and can still be really creative and personal.

Bookmark these four FREE sites for moments when you feel like emitting some care.

1. The High Brow: Send a card created from an art in MOMA’s collection in New York.

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2. The Cool Insert-A-Face Version: Jibjab does those ones where you can cut and paste your friend’s face into the novelty action. But they do it in quite a cool way. I also like the beatboxing flautist one.

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free for you: a melancholy song about divorce (which says so much about where we’re all at right now)

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Bit of a sad-sack giveaway, you might be thinking? Ahhhh, not so! This free download from Tracey Thorn (of Everything But the Girl fame) touched this 36-year-old in lovely, poignant ways. It might you too. Thorn is releasing her solo album soon, but is letting us download the single “Oh, the Divorces!” for free in … Read more

give good quote: stillness

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“In stillness the world is restored.” ~ Lao Tzu I can’t tell you how much this quote means to me right now. I’ve been moving around too much – travelling for work, looking externally for validation and stimulation, getting buzzy in my head about ideas and constantly in “scheduling mode”. I’ve been running late for … Read more

learn how to work your (dorky) quirk

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Hello, I’m a glasses nerd. I’ve worn glasses since I was 4. I’ve done the whole history of dorky glasses. Oooooh, yes: horn-rims, over-sized flastic fantastics and….an eye patch. 69150_1_468

When I tell this story, I found most people struggle to top it: when I was 12 I had to wear an eye patch for a 18 months. Not a cool pirate one; a piece of beige tape over the left lens of my horn-rimmed frames.

It gave me a particularly BROWN and befuddled look. Yessum, I was special. Right at a time when the 6 other girls at my primary school were getting boobs and boyfriends.

Which puts me in a most authoratative been-there-done-that position to advise on embracing an awkward aesthetic fixture.

Yours might be a bald head. Big boobs. Crooked teeth. Or a “thing” for wearing combat boots that you just can’t shake.

The thing is: I could get corrective surgery. Or contacts. But I never have, despite even being offered it for free. Why? Glasses are part of me. My look works around them.

So instead I:

–  don’t shirk. I wear my glasses boldly. And I wear bold glasses. When you make a stamp firmly, people believe what you’re doing is the right thing to do. People believe that my glasses-wearing is good because I don’t apologise for them. The bald man can do the same. It doesn’t have to detract from an evolutionary mating POV…it doesn’t have to suggest weakness (bad eyes, follicular inadequacies).

– work with, not against or around. I don’t wear jewellery near my face to detract from the “glasses effect”. Glasses are my jewellery.

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sunday life: in which I be thoroughly me

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This week I “Be Sarah” (which may or may not involve rolling around in bed in luxurious knits) I have this problem. I’m a really bad party-goer. I can’t seem to stay at them, and my personality grinds to a glazed-over halt whenever I’m forced to. Standing in restrictive going-out garb on a Friday or … Read more

have a sweet weekend March 19 xx

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It’s Friday and sunny. Who’s to complain? I hope you STILL have no plans for Sunday.

And that you’re paving your own road out there, perhaps through a green field??!!!

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Me, I’m off to a wedding in Perth. My mate James Thomas, a reporter on Today Tonight, is getting married. Finally. James was the first person in the world to visit me in hospital when I was born (he’s a few months older than me; his mum and dad are best friends with mine). As he announced at his 30th birthday, after I gave the speech, “we tried kissing once, when were about 18, but it was like pashing my sister”. Which is what a brother would say, right! Ooooh, but in different circumstances. OK, I’ll climb out of that hole now…

Anyway, some nice stuff to share over a glass of pinot grigio in the autumnal evening glow, perhaps:

1. Know you’re not alone when you Just. Don’t. Feel Like being a grown up. (But learn to go there anyway): I love this quote from Julius Erving…

“Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like them”.

Kind of spurred me on this week to get real about what I’m doing. When you work for yourself you can find all kinds of sabotaging excuses for not getting stuff done on off days.

I also emailed back and forth with Seth Godin during the week. Which excited me no end. The guy is a genius.

His post “I don’t feel like it” is a reminder to pull you finger out if you really want to create great things. Seth’s new book Linchpins touches on the importance of pushing through “the resistance” and fighting “the lizard brain” so that you can deliver your artistic gift.

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