Zoe Foster-Blake is a smart cookie.
She’s the boss of her own company, she has a cute chubster baby and a funny husband, a new book out, she is the wildly successful author of a handful of other books, one of which is being made into a TV show. And above all, every day she looks Fresh and On Top Of Her Game.
How?
Magic? No. A robot twin? Nope. She’s just got a few life secrets that she’s shared with us on the I Don’t Know How She Does It podcast. And now we’re dutifully passing them so you too can be the best human you can be.
This is what she gets up to when Hamish is away:
Separate beds = clear heads.
The night before a busy day, she kicks her husband Hamish into the spare room so she can maximize snooze-time.
“He tends to snore. So on a day that I need my brain, I kick him out,” she says. Uninterrupted blizzzzzz.
Bed are for sleeping.
Not for scrolling your social media or binge watching TV or reading books until 3am.
The 35 year-old puts her phone over the other side of the room, into flight mode, and out of reach.
“I never have the phone in bed. ‘Cos it’s everywhere all day, and I’m sick of it.” she says.
There’s no socket beside the bed to plug the phones into, which she said at first was annoying but actually turned out to be for the best, because then the time-sucking vortex of an Instagram feed is that much harder to reach. It’s an approach she takes to anything tempting her from sleep. Currently in the middle of Caroline Overington’s thrilling crime book, The One Who Got Away, she puts books over the other side of the bed so she can’t get to them either. Banished.
Single-tasking is the new black.
“My new thing is to only do one thing well,” she says. Because multi-tasking might feel super efficient,but it’s single-tasking that’s much more productive. So while she’s writing, she will knuckle down and do that. When it’s supermarket shopping, it’s just that in the moment. “I hate seeing myself stand (at the shops) and try and answer emails..because I’m not doing either thing well.” she says.
“If you can’t do two things well at the same time, just choose one. And be true to that thing in that one little minute,” she says.
Don’t worry if your boyfriend is a bit shit/ if you’re single/if you have no money or if you live in a country town and think you will never make it in the big smoke.
Because that was her twenties – an mostly absent boyfriend, not a lot of money to throw around, a hunger to work hard. And she says it drove her to do better things, to throw herself into projects and work really hard.
I had no money so I couldn’t just go shopping.” she says. “I had a job that drove me to do other things around it. I like creating things, I like new projects, I worked really hard…and it paid off.”
Get a tongue-scraper ya filthy animals.
The beauty expert knows what’s what, and the first thing she does every morning is scrape her tongue.
“You’ve gotta start.” she says. “It’s disgusting.”
“When you start using it and you see how much shit comes off you be like “I can’t believe I lived years…there is so much bacteria…”
Get thee to a chemist or a health food shop. Get thee a scraper. And scrape it good.
If you’re feeling shit about yourself wear something bright.
Frazzled or tired? Pre-menstrual or stressed? Throw on a bright pink jumper, bunch your hair into a top knot, slick on a bright lip and wear some fun earrings. It’s the Go-To owner’s go-to pick-me-up
“I feel fun, people have a fun reaction when they see me, I feel like I’ve put in an effort, and it does change my mood. It changes how I feel about myself.” she says.
Concealer is the wrong way to think about your tired-arse eye-bags.
Packing the concealer on like a brickie on a building site? Wrong. You need a corrector. And THEN concealer. The idea being, if you have discoloration under your eyes (if they’re purple because they’re deep set or your skin tone is a bit shit there), you need to get back to skin colour before you have conceal).
So, correct first. Then conceal.
(She uses Napoleon Perdis the one, its peachy and “does a lot of heavy lifting”).
Eating dinner together is tres important.
She’s a rules girl, as anyone who has read her book Textbook Romance will attest to. So as much as you want to scoff your stir-fry the minute it’s done in the wok, hold out and eat dinner with your partner. It’s important. Talk about your day. Decide what TV you’re going to watch next. Laugh at your husband. Let him admire your fun earrings. (And if you’re single, she didn’t have advice for that but I imagine she would encourge scoff your stirfry out of the pan. Because those days are numbered)
Learn to say ‘No’.
‘We say no to everything,” she says. “Because when you say no to others, you say yes to yourself.” The Foster-Blake’s make Sunday’s their quiet days where they can eat pancakes and go for bike rides and don’t have to plug away at emails or rush around like headless chooks.
Time poor? Get long -term beauty fixes.
“Get a lash lift, get your brows died. Get your hair keratin smoothed. Get a big thorough facial.. do the big things, Put in the time and money there and you can have a much easier day to day life.” Zoe says.
“And get a uniform. Have a great jacket, some good pants…investment dressing is dull but the good stuff will last.”
And follow the golden rule: One in, one out.
The fast-fashion-lover always has a charity bag on the go for Hamish to drag off to the Salvos. If something doesn’t fit, or doesn’t make her feel good, into the bag it goes. And the other rule she swears by? If you bring something in the door, something has to leave.
One in one out.
Though it’s not without it’s struggles. “It’s terrible when ASOS arrives.” she admits.
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