About Agni Skafidas

Where are my keys?

The extra spare key

Trust home petsLast weekend, I was cat sitting for one of my clients. It wasn’t the first time to look after their cats while they were travelling and we were all sorted or so we thought. Arriving at their home, the set of keys was laying inside on the dining table behind locked doors!

Luckily, my client was available over the phone and emailed their facilities manager who opened the door within an hour. You should have seen the eyes of the 3 cats. Boy where they glad I got in and they could be fed.

Where do you best keep a spare set of keys?

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How to run effective meetings

Part 2: Holding the meeting

Last week, I provided you with tips for preparing for effective meetings. Today, I want to focus on the actual meeting, what to consider when running it and how to avoid it become a waste of your and the other participants’ time. This mini-series will finish off with the follow up of the meeting results and actions.

How can you get the most out of your meeting? Let’s look at this tips for running the meeting:

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Can you ever have too many make up products?

The daily dilemma of finding your make up

Decluttering and organising a bathroom is probably one of the fun-filled activities for Organised Life and Mind. We may not spend a lot of time there. Yet, getting ready in the morning, applying the make up, preparing for the day ahead, is such a crucial time. How often are you looking for your favourite make up in the mornings?

A recent client was sick of searching for her make up and not knowing how much she all had. Our session was a fun filled afternoon, which probably sounds surprising for you. Not often do people think of organising as a fun activity. What was different here?

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How to run effective meetings

Part 1: Preparation for the meeting

Have you ever been stuck in meetings where you wondered what was going on? Or why you were even there in the first place? Unfortunately, this happened to me! It’s frustrating and makes these meetings appear as a waste of my time.

Companies can help their employees become more productive when setting up and running meetings. In fact, I’ve seen a number of organisations, mainly in the education sector, issue guidelines to their employees. For these teams, it has made them more productive and efficient. Given the limited resources we have, that’s a great achievement and in my view, we all should thrive towards more effective meeting cultures.

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Digital Detox – Are you glued to your phone?

Digital detox for beginners

When was the last time you and your phone were separated? Let’s say for an hour. You two in two different rooms. Remember that? No? Neither do I and it’s scary. My phone and I aren’t glued together but… It’s time for a planned, digital detox!

It all started last year when I went on a holiday and international roaming wasn’t working. It was an absolute shock – it happened on my work phone and I was supposed to give a presentation. Little did I know then that international roaming hadn’t been set up by the company. If I had, trust me, relaxation would have kicked in a lot sooner. The first few days were like cold turkey. Luckily, my personal phone was still working and I had my connection to back home. At the end of the week, I realised something had to change. I didn’t want to be so dependent on phone, tablet, laptop, you name it.

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Spring cleaning? Clear your wardrobe!

How to organise your wardrobe

What you look into any of the Western magazines in the last few weeks? Everyone seems to be talking about spring cleaning. Well, by now, we’re approaching summer, forget spring cleaning your home. Focus on clearing your wardrobe instead!

I’m currently working with a client who’s looking into streamlining her wardrobe, making it more like a capsule wardrobe. You wouldn’t believe the fun we had! She re-discovered items she had long forgotten about and called our session “Shopping in my own closet”.

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No blog this week?!

First of all, please let me apologise for not publishing on Monday, and then again, yesterday. It was a tough and frustrating decision to not publish a blog post this week.

As my loved ones say, I have a tendency to overcommit and want to do a good (note, not perfect!) job. Last weekend, I had to complete a couple of projects and I also had some engagements this week. Knowing that my energies were running low, I chose to not publish this week.

It was part of saying my approach of “Say No to say Yes”.

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