Hello, I’m Karen Currier. I enjoy writing, designing, making art and organising. Over the years, I’ve designed websites, brand identities and processes for managing tasks and content.
My first book, DOING intentionally: How to take care of your business through brain fog, anxiety and overwhelm during the menoshift™ was launched on Monday, 7 November 2022.
During the perimenopause stage of my menoshift™ I was running a business with my partner but struggled to keep going due to the many different menoshift symptoms that changed how I felt and what I could do.
I’m now over 10 years post menopause and have some understanding of what others in one of the three stages of the menoshift that are perimenopause, menopause or post menopause may be experiencing. I recognise that the troublesome trio of brain fog, anxiety and overwhelm can play havoc with your wellbeing and sometimes your belief in yourself to continue to grow thriving businesses. Possibly with imposter syndrome making an unwelcome appearance!
As someone who loves to make things and change things, I have a love-hate relationship with big projects.
My favourite things about big projects include playing with ideas, planning all the possibilities, starting with the first task, iterating agile projects and getting over the finishing line.
My least favourite things about big projects include waterfall projects with little room for change later, the last few lengths of any project.
Of course, big projects means taking care of lots of tasks!
During my menoshift I’ve completed some big projects including migrating together over 500 websites, creating 100 portraits in 100 days, sewing an enormous patchwork memory quilt for my daughter and DOING.
Developing DOING and writing, DOING intentionally: How to take care of your business through brain fog, anxiety and overwhelm during the menoshift™ has been one of the most rewarding and challenging big projects I’ve ever completed. As I began, I still had an ever- present feeling of anxiety and a feeling of overwhelm, but brain fog was already less worrisome. Happily and perhaps coincidentally, part-way through writing, my anxiety dissipated and the feeling of overwhelm gradually reduced too.
I do my best to practise all 7 principles of DOING. I’m still learning how to be kind to yourself first, noticing a positive difference when I do. I have days when I evaluate how I feel and can get frustrated that it doesn’t match the tasks that I need to do. And I need more practise with delegating*. But I love having a DOING Notebook as my one safe place and will need to get a new notebook soon as it fills up. I like to add one task at a time. Using the simply sorted approach is helping me to discover what tasks I do most frequently and those that I don’t want to keep doing. I love that thinking space creates clarity and I’m mostly *DOING 4D.
I hope that by sharing the 7 principles of DOING with you, you’ll be able to make some changes to how you take care of your tasks, to lessen the impact of brain fog, anxiety and overwhelm. And that you’ll be kind to yourself first and develop wonderful businesses to inspire others!