GYSTing from NZ

23 May

I received this lovely email the other day from Andrea, and I thought it was very inspiring – she has kindly given me permission to post it here:

I am not a person who writes to strangers online but your book Get Your Shit Together was calling to me loudly in our small town of Wanaka in New Zealand where I live and I loved it.

Was reading it at 4am and was up at 5am tearing my house apart Feng Shuitting all over. I have been stuck in a rut for a while and thinking about what I needed to do and this was just the ticket.

I don’t have twins but I do have a rather large house, a vineyard , a husband who loves to invite people stay and a small rescue JR who is obsessed with me, and I deal with it all on my own.

If I was younger, piece of cake, but starting to slow down just a wee bit nearly my 60th birthday but absolutely love it all.

You are right you have to learn to love what you have chosen and I applaud your sense of humour which is pretty much on par with mine. It’s what keeps us sane, young and alive.

Thank you for sharing your crazy philosophy. I am flat out telling my girlfriends to get to get their shit together also.

All the best
Andrea

The Grit Doctor says:
Well done Andrea. You have scored 10 out of 10 on the gyst-ometer for totally nailing the principles of the book: Action over talk and learning to love what you have chosen.

REMINDER: Meet The Grit Doctor!

22 May

Don’t forget to enter our competition to win a place on the evening master class Ruth is holding in London on the 12th June. (Wine and nibbles included of course!)

Do you need more grit in your life? Do you need a kick up the backside to get it? All you have to do is send an email to gritdoctor@hotmail.co.uk and tell us why you need The Grit Doctor’s help in no more than 3 sentences and you can win a place on the master class.

The competition closes this Thursday so Get Your Sh!t Together and send that email!

For full terms and conditions click here

A gritty lesson learned

20 May

Sometimes in life, ‘the shelf’ (if non comprende, buy and read Get Your Shit Together) is just ‘TO BE’.

At around 10pm on Thursday when I was in full swing after my book launch, the in-laws phoned to say Rufi had been sick for the 3rd time that night. I ran home, my heart racing. It was that sort of sick bug where he was dry-wretching throughout the night, quite terrifying sounds emanating from his little body, and there was nothing I could do except soothe and sing and cuddle and comfort and offer sips of water and wait patiently until morning when the violence of it all had passed. Thank God, I kept thinking, that Sebastian is unscathed….until he promptly vommed after brekkie. ‘F**********K’!

I couldn’t take them anywhere and expose anyone else to the evil bug, not least of all because no 10 minutes went by without the most disgusting smelling foulness emanating from one of 4 orifices. I was powerless to do anything except surrender. We lay down on the sofa, surrounded by towels and buckets and water and dry crackers and watched telly from dawn till dusk.

Because when it comes to sick toddlers, there is nothing you can actually do to improve the situation other than be there and offer comfort wherever you can until it has passed. There is no merit in getting everybody dressed, in cooking meals, in playing games, in DOING ANYTHING, in tidying up even. ‘The shelf’ was to switch off the phone, the laptop, my brain; and just tune in to their every whimpering need whilst snuggled up under blankets together in our PJs, safe and secure.

The Grit Doctor says:
In cases of extreme illness – the shelf – for very short periods of time – may be THE TELLY.

Grit Grenade #4

16 May

Grit Grenade

Don’t tie yourself down. Get out of the habit of only being able to do things if a certain set of ideal circumstances exist. BE FLEXIBLE.  

THE GRIT DOCTOR SAYS: Stop whingeing about your circumstances all the time and using them as an excuse for not doing stuff.

 

#gyst

@gritdoctor

 

GET YOUR SH!T TOGETHER

RUTH FIELD

PUBLISHES TODAY!

LOOK OUT FOR THE GRIT DOCTOR IN YOUR EVENING STANDARD TONIGHT.

9780751550498

WIN a session with The Grit Doctor!

16 May

A message from my publishers…

Has becoming a capable, poised grown-up turned out to be more complicated than you imagined?

Is your messy handbag a metaphor for the rest of your life?

Don’t worry, The Grit Doctor can help you tackle it all like the fearless superwoman you were born to be.

In Get Your Sh!t Together Ruth Field, aka The Grit Doctor returns with her no-nonsense attitude and trademark humour to tell us how to stop the plates spinning and run our lives more efficiently.

We believe she has so much wisdom to give that it would be rude of us to not to share her and we are therefore offering YOU the chance to win an evening master class with Ruth, held at our swanky offices in London on 12th June 2013, complete of course with wine and nibbles.

All you have to do is send an email to gritdoctor@hotmail.co.uk and tell us why you need The Grit Doctor’s help to Get Your Sh!t Together in no more than 3 sentences by 24th May

We look forward to hearing from you, it promises to be a very fun night indeed!

For full terms and conditions click here

The Grit Clinic: Carpet Capers

15 May

Q: Dearest GD. I had a household related disaster last week, and now my carpet is covered in the lovely green gloss paint that we used to paint the bedroom. The good news is we were intending to get new carpet anyway. The bad news is that due to building work we can’t get one till the end of the summer.

But AGH! The STAIN! It stares at me like a reprimand every time I see it, now half-shifted by industrial carpet cleaners – which is are starting to make the rest of the carpet look grubby…

Do I continue to do penance by cleaning this horrific stain, or resign myself to its presence until at least September? And, either way, how do I excuse it to people when they inevitably come to visit, without seeming like the clumsy oaf I secretly am?

A: I am not sure whether the carpet stain is in your bedroom, if so query why all your guests are getting such a close look in? I am going to assume that this stain has occurred in the communal living space for my own peace of mind….

I can see three obvious solutions:

1. Rip up the carpet and go for a ‘distressed/retro’ floorboard look from now until September. It is actually surprising how underneath so many carpets lie some really quite attractive floorbards that only need a bit of a clean/sand down to scrub up very well (consider the ripping up of the carpet, cleaning and sanding down of the boards to be your penance my dear). If anyone dares to ask why your floor looks so shabby, give them a quizzical/slightly ‘oh-dear-I-can’t-BELIEVE-how-last-year-you-still-are’ look and direct them to some obscure Japanese home furnishings website so avant-garde they will never dare challenge your taste again.

2. Move a piece of heavy furniture to sit on top of the offending green area and when people comment on the incredibly wierd and un-feng-shui arrangements in your living room, simply say – very confidently – either a) ‘Didn’t you know its incredibly ZEN to have your sideboard askew and in the centre of the room?’ or, b) ‘Yes a chair placed in this way is part of a psychology experiment I am conducting with my boyfriend and it is SOOOOO interesting who decides to sit in it and what questions they ask’ (*flip page over on clip board and scribble notes furiously, then look up and say casually, ‘oh didn’t you know I was studying for a masters in psychology at night school’?*)

3. Grit out putting up with the stain and create a brilliantly sexy tale as to how it got there….

Grit Grenade #3

15 May

 

Grit Grenade

Grittify your working environment. Switch off your WiFi, get one of those apps that will disable Facebook and Twitter, turn off the heating to sharpen the mind and just DO the job until it is DONE.

 

THE GRIT DOCTOR SAYS:

Anything that can be done today, must be done TODAY.

 

#gyst

@gritdoctor

 

GET YOUR SH!T TOGETHER

RUTH FIELD

PUBLISHES TOMORROW, 16 MAY

9780751550498

Grit Grenade #2

14 May

Grit Grenade

 

Give up TO DO LISTS. Just do the most urgent thing first.

Suck it up, wade into it with gusto and don’t stop until it is finished properly.

 

THE GRIT DOCTOR SAYS:

The essence of getting your shit together is BEING IN ACTION.

 

#gyst

@gritdoctor

 

GET YOUR SH!T TOGETHER

RUTH FIELD

PUBLISHES THIS THURSDAY, 16 MAY

9780751550498

Grit Grenade #1

13 May

Grit Grenade

Create a Grit Hour each day in which you deal with all your most loathsome tasks

Tip: the earlier the Grit Hour, the more productive it will be.

 

THE GRIT DOCTOR SAYS:

The more grit you are able to unleash, the more bang you will get for your buck.

 

#gyst

@gritdoctor

GET YOUR SH!T TOGETHER

RUTH FIELD

PUBLISHES THIS THURSDAY, 16 MAY

9780751550498

The Grit Clinic: Wedding Blues

8 May

Q: Hi Ruth,

Your new book couldn’t have come at a better time for me! I don’t know what to do about all these weddings I have to go to this year. Six over the summer, and hen dos and I’m a bridesmaid at two of them. They are all over the country and one is even in Spain. I don’t earn a lot of money and I don’t know how I’m going to afford it all – dresses, hotels, presents. It all adds up. I don’t want to offend anyone, but how can I get out of some of them or keep costs down? (Two are for former work colleagues who I like a lot but they’re not best friends or anything.)

Help me!

Susie

A: Hen do’s are an absolute nightmare and a total waste of money: I think you are perfectly entitled to refuse to go to any that are not your best best BEST friends’ and certainly not your work colleagues – frankly do you want your work colleagues to see you at the end of a hen do?!?! Just say NO and don’t make up excuses or lies as to why and spend the whole summer worrying whether you have got your lies straight! A simple ‘thank you, but no’ will suffice. Where weddings are free, the hen night can cost the earth, which is another good reason for you to say no, saving you a huge amount of money and sparing you some hideous memories.

The bride will be paying for your bridesmaids dress and if she isn’t, then ask her to contact me and I will put her right.

You are perfectly entitled to say no to wedding invitations, brides and grooms are always desperate to keep the numbers down and are actually secretly praying that people will decline, so in saying no you are inadvertently giving the bride a wonderful gift….you are certainly not going to upset anyone that is not a very close friend so worry not.

As for presents, if you are travelling to another country for a wedding, you definitely do not need to buy a present on top of that. Being there is the present. As for others, get on to their wedding lists early and snap up the cheapest items before someone else beats you to it.

Spain will be fantastic: combine the wedding with your summer hols, or turn it into a long weekend city break and do some real exploring! Rope in a co-wedding-ee and have an amazing adventure. Cut costs by sharing accomodation etc with this pal.

The Grit Doctor says:

Oh Susie – too many weddings too many friends, too much fun!… There may come a time when you are knee deep in baby vom 24/7 and have no weddings to go to, so enjoy it to the max while you still can.

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