Today was decidedly not a no-meeting day 🙂 I am tired and wiped.
It hasn’t been a year since I was last at work but it’s pretty close. And while I can’t believe it’s been this long, what really makes me struggle more is the lack of clarity around timeline and path to reintegration. I can’t see a line of sight to any version of normal life.
I can’t see what will change so that my kids can fully go back to school. Or so we can go back to work. So we can eat at a coffee shop with friends. So I can travel and see my family again. All of these milestones seem an indeterminate amount of time away. Can’t tell if it’s 6 months 9 months 2 years or even more. That uncertainty is the hardest part.
And yet the climbing gym is opening on Wednesday which is a cause for celebration. So maybe it’s just about baby steps.
Yes to small wins and also yes to naming the pain and frustration. Naming things matters.
One of the side benefits of this project has been the variety in my exercise routine. I am now doing climbing, biking, strength, yoga, stretching and walking each week. And I like the idea of this diversity even if I do less of each.
I wonder how j can create a similar practice with nutrition. And with soul care and skin care. I have to think more about this. The Peloton app helps a lot with the former, I wish there was something similar for all the other areas.
It’s no meeting week at work today. On a usual day, I start at 8-9am and have meetings straight through to 5-6pm. On a good day, I get 30 minutes for lunch and maybe another 30 mins at some point.
So having no meetings is not a small change for me. It fundamentally shifts how I approach my work and what I can get done.
Today I was able to get up, exercise, journal and draw, make a healthy breakfast and read and reply to each mail fully. I was able to read all the links, documents and presentations. I was able to have impromptu conversations to resolve issues. I was able to write intelligent and thoughtful replies.
It felt both productive and calm and rewarding. While it’s not a realistic way for every week to look, I do think having a day or two without meetings semi-regularly seems to be a very good idea.
More generally, changing up routine and taking a step back is the best way to see inefficiency in the system or even have enough distance from it to see what modification might be helpful. I’m grateful to get this chance to do that for work.
Really grateful for this project today. When I do more things on my list, I start the day grounded and calm and centered. It works every single time.
As we walk into March, my OLW class will have a commitment for every day in March and I am wondering whether that’s the push I need to progress in a sub area that I would like but am not progressing enough.
Or if I should pick something completely different.
Or if I should give myself credit for what I am already doing.
Weekly Intention:Â My weekly intention this week is to spend some time getting some of the big rocks moving at work. It’s no meeting week and besides Tuesday when I have a LOT of meetings, I expect it to be quiet. I would like to use that time to think and plan.
This month’s intention is:February: Yes to the Unknown: Be open to new things this month. Listen more, watch others. Be willing to take some steps into the unknown and assume the best. Be brave. As we walk into the last week of February, I would love to think about where in my life I can be a bit braver this week.
One way I will leap this week:Â i am hoping to make some leaps at work, let’s see if I can.
One boundary I will set this week:Â I am going to try hard not to setup meetings and really honor no meeting week.
One area where I will go deeper this week:Â personally journaling, professionally figuring some next steps for the big rocks.
What do I need to sit with this week? i still didn’t do this: the stories I am telling myself. I want to write them down. let’s try one more week and i’ll stop.
I am looking forward to:Â no meetings, let’s see if it sticks.
Focus onCore Desired Feelings (lighter, kinder, enough, magic, wild): hmm this week I want to focus on feeling lighter. how can i unburden myself a bit.
This week’s challenges: i really really would like to move some big rocks instead of getting lost in email. I hope I can make it happen.
Top Goals:Â
Work:Â Â write up the 3 for L and 3 for D, sort out advocates, talk to R, maybe talk to A, figure out next steps for analyst+pgm.
Personal:Â Â get back to drawing and journaling, and see if you can up the bike to 30 mins.
Family: take walks with J. do one thing with N and do one thing with D.
This week, I want to remember: slow is okay. let yourself slow down enough to hear your thoughts.
This book started as a 5-star book for me and ended somewhere near 3 stars. So I averaged it out to 4 stars. It’s a super fascinating read around many topics that pertain to supermarkets (and a few that don’t tie in as closely). I loved the section about Trader Joes the most. But this book is packed with interesting and fascinating stories. Truckers, the fish trade, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and then Amazon and Whole Foods, cars, wine, there’s all that and more.
This sweet genre-bending novel is about Faye, who lost her mom at a very young age and still yearns to be with her so when she stumbles upon a magical way to be with her, she has to choose between getting to know her mom and putting the current beautiful life she’s built at risk.
This novel focuses on motherhood and marriage and there are some lovely characters in it. I enjoyed the sweet, quiet novel and I really liked the mix of scifi and contemporary fiction. I liked that it was a bit unpredictable. I really enjoy magical realism and this felt a little like that.
This book is about being open minded, reassessing your beliefs/thoughts/convictions. He highlights the importance of listening and really being curious about other person’s thoughts/arguments. Being open to other viewpoints. Being willing to be wrong. Adjusting and learning. He also talks about the complexity of most issues and how we like to oversimplify and make them binary and that leaning into the gray is more valuable for learning, growing and listening. Especially by leaning into areas of agreement.
There’s a whole section about careers and being willing to be open and experiment that really resonated with me. I am certainly doing something I knew nothing about in college and wouldn’t have been able to imagine for myself. He talks about the importance of experimentation and checking in with yourself and making sure what you thought was/is making you happy is still the same thing.
While there wasn’t much earth-shattering in this book (except that the boiling frog story is not true!!) I still enjoyed the reminders to be open minded and that most issues are more complex than not. that there’s always some common ground. that fewer arguments are stronger and better and it’s always always a good idea to reevaluate regularly.
I read this book in one sitting and really enjoyed my time with it. It was like one of those comedies where you know one thing after another is going to be misunderstood and go sideways and it just keeping building on itself. The audio was excellent and this book came exactly when I needed it so I really enjoyed it.
I want to say so many things about this book. It was recommended to me by someone I respect. They said it really inspired them. And I do think there are many inspiring points in this book. Some great stories and some solid advice and some good learnings.
But, for me, his tone/personality/writing got in the way so much that I couldn’t really enjoy any of these at all. Even the stories of when he messed up were still full of hubris.
He references being the “Jackie Robinson of barbecue” and adds rap lyrics in the beginning of every chapter for reasons that I just couldn’t figure out. The references to he vs she in the book stand out and feel awkward throughout. His story about his first date with his wife that’s meant to make him look principled or not sure what, felt awkward and a bit weird.
There were so many instances throughout the book that made me dislike him so much as a person (or at least the way he wrote this book and painted himself in the book) that it was really hard for me to connect with the advice itself.
Which, I will say, was solid in many places and if you can get past the things that drove me insane, you might indeed enjoy this book a lot.
