Archives: work

Flexible working

I’ve not been quite so grateful for flexible working as I was today. Struck down by the lurgy (a really nasty cough with nothing to shift off my chest and no streaming nose to be able to call it a cold) and hardly sleeping, the prospect of a 5am alarm to get me into Bromley for the various meetings and epic To Do list that faced me this morning wasn’t a good one.

So I switched things up, slept in until 8am and worked from home taking all my meetings over Lync (the rubbish Microsoft “official” version of Skype) and cracking through my To Do list like a demented giant-omlette-making chef gets through eggs.

Flexible working FTW!

Exploring new areas

If you missed the announcement (why, aren’t you following the Cystic Fibrosis Trust?) I’ll soon be joining them in an exciting move to a more central London location in Aldgate.

Coincidentally, I had a meeting in the very same area this afternoon that gave us chance to explore the area and find the best local watering hole for us to re-christen our Meeting Room 5.
The move is exciting in itself. The pub we found tonight (two minutes from Aldgate East station and a fast train home) was lovely. As was the company.
Many reasons to smile.

Right reactions

For many reasons I can’t go into much detail about today’s smile moments (yes, more than one), but I can say that I walked from work to the station home with a smile on my face the whole way tonight.

There are many moments in a working life when you hope for the right reaction: approval of plans, success of a project, addressing a problem and dealing with it well. Today has seen multiple versions of these things.
I woke up this morning and was deeply distracted during my normal meditation. Luckily I’m deep enough into my practice now for this not to annoy me, frustrate me or make me angry, but it did unsettle me since it’s the first time in the last few weeks that the practice hasn’t gone brilliantly.
Where I may, in the past, have let this throw my whole day of, I managed to shake that feeling pretty quickly and set my mind to the tasks that lay ahead.
And the day panned out pretty perfectly, with all of my meetings filled with the right reaction from the people involved.
It’s a wonderful way to end a working week. Lots of smiles promised this weekend, too. What are your plans?

Creative win

A nice work-related smile today as we presented some initial creative concepts for a big piece of work that is rapidly descending on us.

Any creative will know presentation of concepts to a senior leadership team is always slightly nerve-wracking as you face that awkward “what do I do with this if they don’t like it?!” thought process.

Luckily they not only liked it, some of them even mentioned that when they first heard the concept they really didn’t get it and thought it would be a dead end, but seeing the execution and possibilities they got almost excited.

Score one for the creatives today!

My new work space

It never lasts long, but following a fit of cleaning, clearing and moving-stuff-around frenzy at the weekend I managed to create myself a fresh, light and new space to work in my study at home.

Flexible working is a wonderful thing, but I do need my own space to shut myself away from everything else and get productive. Every now and then I need to refresh it to clear my desk and my head.

Rather pleased with the result.



Two Weeks Off, But Don’t Go Away

By the time you read this, I will probably be in the air on my way to the beautiful, addictive idyll of Kaua’i island, Hawai’i.

I cannot describe just how excited I am. I can confidently tell you that if I could sort out the cost of health care I would be living there right this second.

I would have no hesitation in selling the house, investing in a visa and moving lock, stock and barrel to the Garden Island for keeps.

I love it that much.

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Getting up and going. Again.

One of the few blogs that I follow posted a great piece this week about get-up-and-go. When we’ve had too long a break in what we’ve been doing, it gets harder and harder to get ourselves started off at it again.

Something I’ve very acutely aware of this week.

It doesn’t bother me if I have an occasional off-day—I can’t be perfect—but I notice that if I let it go too many days in a row, it starts to get easier and easier to make “off” the new normal. Then, I have to fight hard to get the drive back; it isn’t easy anymore.
Tyler Tervooren, Advanced Riskology

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