After suffering a heart attack at 45, Preston-based business owner Nic Davies became an expert on prioritising which plates to keep spinning and which to let fall. With her new book Get Life Organised Nic shares ways to avoid overwhelm, take control of your time, and manage your household in a realistic way that works for you
‘It’s not about being a perfect ‘insta-mum’ or anything else that social media leads you to believe you should be doing.’ Nic Davies explains. ‘Don’t compare yourself to people you follow online, because you rarely see the whole picture. Some influencers even use AirBnBs to film their interiors content, so it’s important to remember there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to these immaculate picture-perfect homes. It puts people under a lot of pressure when they feel they should somehow be meeting these unattainable standards.’
With her new book Get Life Organised Nic doesn’t want people to strive for Pinterest-worthy homes. There’s no section on decanting your cereals into decorative glass jars, or making children’s meals look like fairytale scenes. She earnestly wants to help other business owners, or those working from home, simply make their household more functional and comfortable, while avoiding stress and burnout.
In fact, she wants them to learn from her experiences.
‘I thought I was busy before... but it really put it in perspective when I suddenly went from running a household of three, to a household of eight overnight; caring for and raising children of differing ages and needs and adapting to large, blended family life. I was racing around having to stretch the shopping budget, sourcing school uniforms with little notice and no money, trying to keep two businesses running, looking after myself and doing my best to help my partner support his grieving children. That was when I realised just how busy things could really get.
‘With both home and worklife, I was throwing everything at the wall and hoping something would stick. I didn’t have a strategy. I was pedalling frantically just thinking ‘if I work harder, it’ll come good in the end’ now, looking back I can see that I was putting a huge amount of effort into not really getting very far.
‘Over the years I’ve made mistakes that have cost me my home and my health, and from that – I learnt a lot. Finding myself on a cardiac ward after a minor heart attack was a real eye opener. Now, I’m in a position to share my experience and the successful strategies I’ve since built up, and hopefully they can help someone else.’
Nic doesn’t claim to have all the answers, and the book is easy to read without ever straying into ‘preachy’ territory. It feels more like a helpful chat with someone who’s been through the wringer and come out the other side with some truly valuable insights.
Through the years, Nic has pulled together and honed the methods that work for her, in order to get more mileage out of the work she puts in.
She gets a lot of pleasure out of helping people feel more organised and motivated in their chosen field. Aside from writing this book, she also runs a business with her husband as well as being a productivity and lifestyle mentor, professional speaker and the founder of Platespinning Academy.
Nic’s one-to-one advisory work (and the book) help business owners get life organised at home so they can reclaim the headspace, time and energy needed to run a successful business.
Get Life Organised doesn’t provide a rigid formula to follow, there’s no one-size-fits-all policy. Rather, it highlights helpful tools and simple strategies you can pick and mix to make your work/life balance suit you.
It quickly became an Amazon bestseller in a number of sectors including two main Kindle categories.
The focus is on creating a loose structure for getting organised and feeling accomplished at home and at work, with no need to beat yourself up if you don’t achieve every single target you set for yourself in a day.
Nic points out: ‘The way I look at housework, and life generally, is that it’s better to have a plan and not stick to it than to have no plan at all.’
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