Juju

Take the quiz: https://clutterbug.me/what-clutterbug-are-you-test

I found this kind of fun as a springboard for organisational ideas. The quiz results are followed up by a video for tips.

Personally, I am a bee:

Love visual abundance and organizational abundance. You prefer to see your everyday used items instead of hiding them away. You are also a bit of a perfectionist and tend to pile items until you can put them away properly.

What little things have you implemented to reduce the cognitive overload of life and/or stay organised?

Some random ones of mine:

1. "Formulas" to fall back on - outfit formula for when I don't want to think about what to wear, making dinner formula (repetition of what ingredients I buy, very similar meals just with key components changed around)

2. On the clothes - I prioritise black clothes so that I can throw together outfits easily. I have lots of variants of black top + black bottom.

3. Write things down somewhere. Immediately. I use thougt capturing apps/ software like Google keep, obsidian but also have used bullet journals or just notebooks with page numbers. I'm currently building a note on obsidian with important info for things I always need to refer to at random times like national insurance number.

4. Always label files on computer in a logical way. Avoid the urge to name things sjdudnskao as this will only come back to haunt you!

5. Use lots of key words in emails to myself that I know I will want to search for later.

6. Assign a specific dumping area for my important stuff that I need to grab in mornings while getting ready for work.

7. Organise physical items based on being able to easily access them / see them. Many people, me included, need things to be visible otherwise the organisation just doesn't work. I use Marie kondo tips to do this and also lots of tips from neurodivergent groups on fb. I actually try and stack my fridge like Marie kondo stacks clothes. Basically store what I can upright like books rather than one on top of the other. I only "hide" things when I have multiple items and then put the current one to use at the front.

Aaand many more. This is just what came to mind now.

This video (there's a series of them but the first one is sufficient at first) was what helped me get started with obsidian.

I find it extremely useful for writing everything down and being able to easily access my thoughts and important information.

I also use the calendar plug in and daily notes. Every day I open a daily note and use it for my to do lists and to note down anything important that happened that day.

I have tried many, many ways to stay organised and to capture my thoughts. One of my main issues is getting myself to actually look at what I've written down. I have a tendency to let things disappear into the background and click off reminders without even realising. I also love s physical notebook but it takes a lot to get into the habit of checking it daily.

One of the things I am trying is making my phone itself a dashboard for organisation using widgets. On my front page here I have a todoist widget and a small view of calendar. On the next homepage I have just one big Google keep note widget which I'm using as a brain dump for when I get random stressy thoughts in my head/ things I need to remember and deal with later. I also have a full monthly view of calendar as another widget on another home screen.

I really like it, especially the calendar but it is not foolproof. I am finding that im already ignoring the todoist list and still going back to Google keep which is one of my favourite apps for thought capturing.

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Teachers, junior doctors and police to get 6% pay rises Sunak will make schools and hospitals find the money for public sector pay deal Sunak will make schools and hospitals find the money for public sector pay deal

Rishi Sunak will give millions of public sector workers including teachers, junior doctors and police officers pay rises of at least 6 per cent.

The Times has been told that the prime minister has accepted the recommendations of all the independent pay review bodies despite concerns that raises could fuel inflation. The government will not borrow more to fund the raises, meaning departments face a £3 billion squeeze on their budgets.

Teachers will be given a 6.5 per cent pay rise in an attempt to end industrial action that has forced thousands of schools to close. Junior doctors will receive 6 per cent.

Police and prison officers are expected to receive pay rises of 6 per cent, while armed forces personnel will receive rises of between 5 and 6 per cent. Ministers are said to accept that there is a “tacit” agreement to give their personnel the recommended pay rises as they are unable to strike.

Sunak said he would decide on pay rises “responsibly”, as borrowing to pay for them would make inflation worse.

Speaking on Wednesday in Lithuania where he was attending the Nato summit, Sunak said: “Everyone knows the economic context we are in and we need to make sure that government decisions, particularly when it comes to not borrowing more, are made responsibly so we don’t fuel inflation, make it worse or last for longer.”

Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “If you’re spending, say, a billion pounds more on pay it will probably mean fewer teachers and teaching assistants or fewer textbooks and school trips. It will put more pressure on public services that are already finding it difficult to deliver.”

‘Abandonment of reality’ NHS leaders said it was “risible” to expect them to fund pay rises from existing budgets, calling it “a complete abandonment of reality” to claim it could be done without cutting services.

“Pay awards need to be fully funded. The NHS hasn’t got the resources to fund them from existing budgets,” said Sir Julian Hartley, head of the hospitals group NHS Providers.

“Finances are very stretched this year as the level of cost improvement programmes that we’re starting to deliver are really significant. That means that every penny counts in the context of delivering all the priorities for patients, and for elective recovery and urgent and emergency care.”

Hospital bosses say they have been told to find cost savings of 6 per cent this year, double the normal efficiency targets.

“To suggest that there is more that could be found to fund a pay award is risible,” said one. Another said: “Six per cent is already a significant stretch and it is simply not feasible to deliver over and above that.”

Hunt told Peston on ITV: “In the end, if you fund any public sector pay rise by increasing borrowing that year, that pumps billions of pounds of extra money into the economy. And when companies can’t meet the demand, when people try and spend that money, they react by putting up their prices.

“So . . . the most important thing is what I said, which is that we won’t fund any public-sector pay awards through additional borrowing.”

Nice extract from a great book "How to Talk so Kids will Learn at Home and at School" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

Great book for reflecting on how we can use our talk as teachers in a productive way in order to get the best responses from our students.

Lots of fantastic tips for classroom management. Really makes you think about how as a teacher our response can escalate a situation very quickly. Alternatively, we can respond in a way to de-escalate. Make students feel valued and heard and then redirect to learning. Not always that easy of course but still very effective.

Book: How to Keep House While Drowning by K C Davis

Style: Informal, personal, short chapters, advice

Content: Advice on routines and methods for keeping your house tidy and functional when you are struggling either due to neurodivergence, disability or mental illness. Some practical tips but a lot of advice on how to reframe self-talk and how you think about your house work tasks.

Why I recommend: It's a very quick read and not packed full of how-tos and practical advice but what it does do is extremely effective in my opinion. The emphasis on reframing your thoughts has been very effective for me. The takeaways from the book were things I could easily implement without feeling like I now had a long overwhelming to do list.

Some key things off the top of my head:

• Tidiness or untidiness is morally neutral. Don't assign morality to how good you are at keeping a tidy house.

• Think of tidying a room as resetting it. When a room is no longer serving its purpose then it just needs a little reset.

• Accept that some days you can't do very much at all. That's okay. You can plan for it, however. Davis, as I recall recommends having closing tasks (end of day, before going to bed). She has two versions: the ideal and the survivables. I'm not sure how she actually words this but that's what I'm calling it. Basically, what is the bare minimum you can get away with doing before going to bed?

• Frame things as being kind to myself. How can I be kind to myself today? Washing the dishes would be kind to future me as I won't have to wakw up to dirty dishes, for example.

• Use unconventional methods if they help. Make your house make sense to you and make it work for your purposes. Your house should serve you not the other way round. If you want a dustpan and brush/ hoover/ laundry basket/ general dumping basket/ whatever in every room then go for it.

Just got sent this while I'm off sick.

These are bits of my newly put up display board.