It has been a very interesting 10 days indeed! Just wanted to write a little update on a couple of developments that have occurred, that have had quite an impact on me and my life. On the weekend of the 22nd March, I happened to come across a nifty bit of software called Scapple. It was created by the same folks as Scrivener, which as you know is my favourite piece of writing software ever.

Scapple is a mind-mapping tool. No, scrap that. It is THE mind-mapping tool. When trying to organise my thoughts and ideas, I often mind-map on paper. But things are always in the wrong place and other things get deleted and it looks like a mess in the end. Enter Scapple. On Saturday, I was actually attempting to mind-map on paper, and was getting quite frustrated. When I discovered, and then bought and downloaded Scapple, I was totally hooked, and got the mind-map done speedily and efficiently (and it looks way better than my scribbles!) It’s also given me a new way to do my talks and workshops, as I can use them as prompts instead of using notes or a script, which I don’t like to do. If you are even vaguely curious, I would urge you to download the trial version and have a go!

On the same day, through the blog of a lady called Julie who followed my blog, I found the Chronodex. For years, I have bought diaries, used them for a few days into the year, only to lose them until October. Planning my time and recording my time, has been something that I have not been able to do easily, but something that I wanted to be able to do. Well, for the last ten days, I have been using the Chronodex daily, and it is completely changing the way I look at my days, and is enabling me to schedule my time and to see when things are taking up too much time. The Chronodex was created by a guy called Patrick Ng, and he is happy for people to download the Chronodex diaries he posts on his blog, all they cost is a prayer for the good health of his family. I just copied the image from Julie’s blog and printed, cut and paste them into a notebook, so that I could record other things on the page too. But I made sure I sent a prayer to his family too.

The Chronodex in action!

On Thursday last week, I had a visit from the fabulous George Hardwick, and his wife and baby girl. He had come to see me so that we could have a session together, working out what I should focus on, where I should go next. For the next few hours, we went through what I had already created, what I needed to do to make that more successful, and also what I really enjoyed doing. To have someone like George speak so passionately and get so excited about my work, made me really look at what I have created in a new light. It’s been a while since I really stepped back and looked at what I have achieved in the last few years, and actually, it’s quite a lot! I sometimes get so wrapped up in worrying about all the things I still need to do, that I forget to celebrate and appreciate what I have already done. After our session, I was talking to my partner about some of the ideas, and a little later, the vision of what I should be doing and how it should work, came into my mind, and I suddenly understood what George had meant when he said that at the moment of breakthrough, you will have tears of joy in your eyes. To have it all make so much sense, and to feel so right, was just amazing. I bounced around for the rest of the evening, and though the last three days have been crazy, that feeling hasn’t gone away. I know what to do now. I know what my next step is, and I know it will all work out perfectly.

So if you find yourself stuck, if you cannot see the next step, and if you want to make a living giving your gift and being the creative soul you truly are, than please get in touch with George!