My Interview with Marcia Francois
Professional Organizer & Coach
South Africa
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Q: What motivated you to start your business?
I was in a really bad way, time management-wise, in 2003. I wasn’t eating breakfast or lunch, nor going to gym and was working non-stop until 6pm every night AND STILL NOT COPING! I started working with a coach to get a handle on my life. Of course, the very first thing we worked on was time management. And it changed my life!
After those 3 months, I was taking breaks to eat, going to gym and having a normal, fulfilled life. I saw what a difference coaching made in my life so I decided to become a coach too.
Then a few years later a friend of mine was going through a work crisis and I thought that professional organising would be perfect for her. I told her I’d come along to a course and little did I know that I’d become hooked on organising too. Today, my friend is still at that same job and here I am, with organising being another niche in my bag of tricks.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your time management and organizing work?
I love seeing people who were overwhelmed and felt they had no choice take their lives back. I love it when people have the peace that being organised brings.
Q: What are the 3 common time management and organizing issues/mistakes you see people making at work?
No prioritising
Most people fritter away their day with low priority items and end up working late into the evening just doing what they’re employed to do. This goes for self-employed people too.Wasting time with emails and web surfing
I don’t have accurate stats but just from my experience, I’d say people waste about 2 hours a day with the biggest time waster ever – email! If you allow 2 hours to reply to emails, you will use the entire two hours. If you allow just 15 minutes, you will attend to the most important email and leave the junk for later.Living other people’s agendas
People think they don’t have a choice and run around at other people’s beck and call the whole day. We must remember that we always have a choice.
Q: Can you share a few of your favorite time management tips for people to function better at work?
Always plan your day
Take just 10 minutes at the end of the day to plan the next day’s work. Prioritise so that you know which are your high urgency, high priority items.Eat the frog
Ariane, you and I have spoken a bit about this before but it is the ONE thing that makes the most difference in my clients’ lives. When you discipline yourself to “eat the frog”, your high priority items are out of the way first thing in the morning and your day can only get better. I’d encourage your readers to read the full article I wrote and download the “eat the frog” form here. http://takechargesolutions.org/downloads.htmlLearn to say no
When you say yes to something, you always say no to many other things. For example, when you say yes to surfing the web, you’re saying no to spending time with your family, working on your business, exercising, etc. In a work situation, “no” doesn’t have to mean no. You can say “I can help you with that tomorrow” or “why don’t you do the first draft and I’ll finish off that report”. Saying no gets a lot easier the more you practice.
Q: Tell me about one of your best client success stories.
My client is a journalist for a local publication whose day was spent both in the office, writing and setting up appointments, and out interviewing people. When she first started coaching with me, she had no personal life because her entire week was a blur of running around for work. She felt overwhelmed, anxious and out of control.
We started putting some principles into place like planning her day using blocks of time for office work and interviewing, and of course, eating the frog first, which for her meant writing her articles ahead of deadline. She also learnt about boundaries and learnt to say no.
With all the extra time she now had, she had time to go to the gym, take up piano lessons again (where she was progressing in leaps and bounds) and best of all, she had a weekend to herself again.
After a month, I barely recognized her – she looked 5 years younger and happy again. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me – to see my clients living a fulfilled life again.
Thanks for interviewing me, Ariane! This has been lots of fun!
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Marcia Francois is a personal life coach and professional organiser who teaches small business owners and other busy people how to have more time, less stress and a more organised and fulfilled life. Visit www.takechargesolutions.org for your free Organise your Life e-book and the rest of your organising success pack. Marcia also blogs at Organising Queen and Marcia’s take charge blog.
