The fourth weeknote. The new year’s first reflection covers the previous year’s last week. What did I do? I took some days off and didn’t do any work last week. Let’s reflect on that!
It is great to work in a place where I can take some time off without worrying about what I will find coming back. With some strategic reset I was able not to think about the regular work projects. I don’t have to worry about what I will find when I return, and I don’t have any FoMO symptoms either (Fear of Missing Out).
And it’s not that I don’t have anything interesting or important to do there. Quite the opposite. I’m already looking forward to Tuesday when I will re-engage with it all. It’s just that the place is full of great people who will carry on doing great things whether I’m there or not. I’ll try to help a little when I’m back, but I can rest and recharge for now. (Mind you, I’m typing these words after almost two weeks of not checking my office emails, teams or slack messages!)
And recharging I needed. After a few things I have done earlier in the week – I’ll write about them in a moment – we took a four-hour drive Lan i’r Gogs. We stayed in a nice little place with no mobile reception for two nights. The first night I went to bed early and slept for 15 hours straight! 2.5x my norm. The need for that nap sums up the year 2022 for me.
But it wasn’t all sleep last week. I have done some reading, some thinking, and some writing:
- I have refreshed and written up an idea stuck in my head for the last year. In short, it’s about digital volunteering and gamifying first aid volunteering experience. Check the links for more detail. I had good feedback and a few offers of help. Thanks! Let’s see what we can do in 2023.
- I blogged about the connection I made while reading Digital Body Language between how we communicate with each other and how differently we write code.
- I watched an interesting short video from Cal Newport about the 20% paradox. Is this the solution to my personal productivity goal of 2023?
- I have spent a lot of time thinking about continuous professional development and how what we do (or don’t do) in the digital space differs from what I do in my volunteering roles. There is so much that should be said, I think, in this subject. And yet I cannot find the right words. I started (for the third time) writing about it this week, but it didn’t go anywhere.
And the weeknotes? I will continue the experiment for a little while, and we’ll see what happens.
Happy New Year!
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