Check check double check

The end of the year is upon us again, and that means the well-known lists! Secretly, I love lists. But especially things to do lists ? Nothing makes me feel more fulfilled than crossing off lists. I do have a knack for putting off “not fun things” for as long as possible. Until the time comes when I really have to get to work on that pile of not-so-nice things.

For example, what I really don’t like, but important every now and then, is checking insurance. Am I not over or under insured, filling out forms and so on. In particular, I find figuring out health insurance really the hell. Tax affairs is another thing, for the annual returns, getting all the paperwork together again and especially not putting a comma somewhere wrong? Thank god I have Patricia, my personal assistant who is very good at administration and all that goes with it. And of course Ellen, who has also been helping me from day one to keep my administration organized and, most importantly, insightful. I can really enjoy Patricia’s perfectionism, even the folders in her computer are sorted you can find back what you were looking for in no time.

Order in chaos

In my case, CHAOS is my middle name. I try again and again, but there is something everywhere. Once I started creating folders and storing them in an order that made sense to me. Don’t think I can find back what I saved last week! Thank God there is always someone to come to my rescue when I once again can’t find something. Not for nothing do we work with a NAS on which we can have all the office ladies working together. Passwords are another such thing. At least 3x a day I call into the office asking: What is the password of……. No doubt I have them stored or written down somewhere, but where? That is always the question. Stuck in one of the twenty booklets on my desk.

That’s another thing, I love booklets! I prefer using the pen to write my lists and notes. Once I thought it would be handy if I had a booklet for each subject. So one for Fabryk Design, one for FBRK-Works, one for new designs and yet another for brilliant hunches. By now I have two piles of booklets (I think without exaggerating, about 20 of them) But categorizing by subject has never worked out … everything is mixed up and preferably I start at the back too. I used to do that, my mother told me as a child that Chinese people did that too. And now I am still reminded of that daily.

Focus on the FBRK business

Could the chaotic nature be linked to creativity? Or is it just a lame excuse I keep to myself? In any case, I am not the only one dealing with this. Suzan, my right-hand man in the ICT and marketing field has some skills as well. And when we are together, it’s party time! We just manage to get a new concept off the ground within 5 hours, write an entire business plan, map out the entire route and then realize after 3 days that we don’t really have time for it and that it was a very ambitious plan after all. This has already caused several hilarious moments, when we later said to each other: what the …. where we thinking? ?

To add more focus, I have been working intensively with Folkert van der Heide over the past few months. A marketing strategist who took a critical look with us at our routing, our portfolio and everything else. For the next 4 to 5 years, I now know exactly what is going to happen broadly and what we are working toward. And that gives peace of mind! I keep more time to be entrepreneurial and focus on things I care about.

Fabryk Design has many colors

I know quite well about myself where my strengths are and where they are not. Therefore, I like to work with people who are the opposite of me. If everyone within the fabryk were as chaotic as I am we would probably have a lot of fun, and genius ideas, but the administration would be a mess. If we were all super tightly organized, we probably wouldn’t have had such cool ideas as we do now. Time after time, it is searching for the balance and bringing out the best in each other.

Again, I digress completely from the topic of this blog, we were going to talk about lists. Well, that too is undoubtedly typical Esther.

I’m going to continue ticking off lists for a while, one I’ll probably cross out. This week’s blog is up again ?