For the first time that I can remember, I am not waiting for something

I am not waiting to finish high school so I can go off on ‘the big trip to Europe’ (I’m pretty sure we didn’t call them ‘gap years’ in Australia in the 80s)

I am not waiting to go to university

I am not waiting for my exams to be over

I am not waiting to get a real job

I am not waiting for Fridays

I am not waiting for holidays

I am not waiting to quit my real job

Because yesterday was the last day at the real job I have had for more than a decade.

It wasn’t a bad job, in fact, there were times when I had to pinch myself to believe I was actually allowed to do it at all. Me, a country girl from Western Australia, living in London and working at the world’s greatest news agency (apologies to the opposition, I am, of course, biased). It was a job which gave me some amazing experiences and allowed me to witness first hand what was happening in the world before most other people got to see it. I worked with people I consider some of the bravest, craziest and most fabulous I will ever meet and I will be devastated if they don’t remain in my life. It was a great job and one that young people are fighting every day to get into.

But it meant I belonged to someone else. I belonged to managers and shareholders and men in north America I have never met. And I’m not sure I’ve ever really been comfortable with that.

So after agonising, debating with myself, my fella and my friends, figuring out the finances and wondering why so many others in my industry appeared to be getting handy redundancies but none were coming my way, I bit the bullet myself.

Pressing the button on that resignation email was, in the end, not as hard as I thought it might be.

I know I’m leaving with love. The door is open for me to return as a freelancer. I will still be allowed to go to the Christmas party.

But now, my days belong to me.

And I am no longer waiting for anything.

Shit!

What a responsibility!

Now I have no excuse but to make every day count.

I get to choose what I do EVERY SINGLE day. I may be working on one of the many business ideas I have been boring my friends with and writing down in cute Paperchase notebooks. I may be hanging around in the startup world which so excites me, hoping someone will give me a chance to find out if my skills are transferrable (“You can remove extra spaces from shotlists AND understand cameramen with strong accents calling you from war zones on terrible phone lines? Sure, that’s exactly like coding a website, you’ll be fine!”) I may finally take the time to figure out which shelves I want to put up on my bare study walls. I may even be freelancing at my old job (reminding me why I did it in the first place and making a conscious decision to put some money in the bank, rather than turning up because I have to). I may decide to sit and read all day in front of the fire.

This is my perfect life. I don’t intend to waste it.

All those ‘someday, maybes’ are now back on the table.

Here are just a few of the things I have been adding to my ‘What I’ll do when I have time’ list over the last ten years. You may recognise some of them yourself…

Get fit
Learn Spanish
Start that real world business idea I have been exploring as part of the amazing and life-changing Start-Up Tribe
Hang around on Lynda.com (there’s stuff on there to learn you wouldn’t believe!)
Do some travel writing
Put in place some of the 379,000 odd daily habits that are guaranteed to make you a world-wide success
Be funnier/laugh more
Take more of an interest in clothes
Listen to new music
Learn to sketch note
Learn to code
Try new hairstyles
Get myself some of that Periscope
Oh — and Instagram
Explore bits of London I have never been to (about 97% of this great city)
Write lyrics for songs
Spend some time in a tropical co-working space
Jump out of a plane (Really? Maybe…I need to think a bit more about it)
Stop being scared of stuff like jumping out of planes
Do those eye exercises I bought about five years ago
Become an iPhone video star camerawoman
Become more involved in the lives of refugees
See if I can do some kind of contract work with Room to Read — an organisation I just adore
Finish one of those novels I started writing when I was 12
Sing
Build the perfect productivity system
Figure out this mindfulness thing
Sort out the pile of stuff under my desk
Sort out my Evernote folders
Get Color Shopper out to the U.S.
Revamp Packabook
Read Maya Angelou
Write a list of all the things I want to do

You get the picture, there’s loads to get on with. The trouble is…

I’m inherently lazy.

Left to my own devices, if I only did what I ‘felt like’ each day, I would just find various locations around the house in which to sit and read, mainly in the bath or in front of the fire with a glass of sloe gin. Believe me when I tell you I really don’t know what it means to ‘feel like going for a run’.

So, to make sure I don’t just live in the enticing worlds of my favourite novelists instead of my own, I NEED a system which work for me.

I like to wake up (early) to the instructions I have left myself the night before, otherwise I don’t know where to start. And now with 24 hours a day to fill with my own instructions instead of someone else’s, I am going to be working out how best to do it.

This is where I get to start again and build a routine which suits me; which brings together the right mix of achievement, forward-motion, time with loved ones and peace. It needs to allow me to deal with the backlog of stuff I wish I had organised better in the past and make space for the unknown opportunities ahead. This stuff really excites me; because I am a productivity geek and because I know for a fact you can add hours to your day if you do this right and lose many more in the Facebook Vortex if you don’t. And I want to live and breath every one of those hours in my day.

All those articles on productivity and managing time I’ve been saving to my Evernote folders are going to be re-read and analysed. All those habits of the world’s most successful people are going to be explored, and tried one at a time. All those fabulous get-your-life-together tools that are out there are going to be scrutinised to see if they are just exercises in procrastination or if they really work (for me). This new life of mine is going to be one massive productivity experiment, I am going to ‘build’ my days, one at a time. I will try things that don’t work, I will have to abandon things I once thought were important, I will discover new passions and I will have to remind myself that setting time aside for myself, to read books and have baths is allowed. I need to learn how to be my own best boss.

I have generally been a fairly private person online. As journalists, we are wisely encouraged to keep our views to ourselves so as not to compromise our work. But now that my days are my own — I intend to embrace the transparency of this new exciting world I am entering; after all, it’s the only way to keep up with the young folk!

It’s scary. And it’s liberating. My views may actually count. I have things to say.

True, people will probably make snide comments when I make typos and grammatical mistakes (calls herself a journalist!), but on the plus side, if I ever want to write a book about any of this, half of the work will have already been done, right?

And I hear the greatest opportunities come to those who are out there discussing their thoughts in the public space, instead of whispering them into their journals. How else do people find you?

So — if you too feel the need to be your own best boss, to make the most of your days, need some help in creating order from the chaos (or are just an aspiring productivity geek like me) — I invite you to do this with me.

Let’s hold each other’s hands and work on it together, one day at a time.

I’m starting right now.

I believe all bosses should mark a new appointment with a symbol of celebration.

And as I write this I’m sitting at a place I think epitomises the excitement, anticipation and adventure of this new appointment of mine — the Grand Champagne Bar at London’s St. Pancras Station.

Whoever thought of building a champagne bar right next to the trains was a genius. The romance of it is overwhelming.

I may not be getting on a train today, but (and I know it’s a cliché) it really is a new journey. Long-distance train journeys have always filled me with excitement, and that’s the feeling I’m marking now. With some fizz.

It’s 3 o’clock on a Wednesday. I am not at work. I am not getting on a train to go to work. I am not waiting for anything, not even for a train.

This day is mine. I am going to make it count. And tomorrow. And the next.

Click on the ‘Follow’ button to join me.

Salute!

Suzi

P.S. I think this might be my first ‘selfie’. See, that’s me… keeping up with the young folk! I do feel a bit ridiculous though…

Champagne at St. Pancras Station, London…