March 2024
MonthNotes
Hi, welcome to my MonthNotes — reflective notes looking back over the past month, loosely based on a set of questions which help me reflect.
“There are very few things better done by speeding up, yet we live in a world that is demanding more and more speed, and less and less reflection.” Iain McGilchrist
If you’re curious about this practice, I suggest you take a look at Giles Turnbull’s new website Doing weeknotes, which explains what weeknotes are, how they work, and how to start writing weeknotes of your own.
Giles explains that once a week is the most common cadence for this sort of practice/note, hence the name “weeknotes”. But it’s not the only option, and although I tried weekly in the past, monthly currently works better for me. And Giles says “that’s fine too” — phew!
I always include questions/reflections on what I enjoy, because cultivating a focus on positive events has a significant positive impact of our wellbeing.* Morover, what we choose to give our attention to changes what we find in the world:
“Attention changes the world. How you attend to it changes what it is you find there. What you find then governs the kind of attention you will think it appropriate to pay in the future. And so it is that the world you recognise (which will not be exactly the same as my world) is ‘firmed up’ — and brought into being.”*
For example, since I’ve included a question about poems, many more poems come to my attention.
“The choice we make of how we dispose our consciousness is the ultimate creative act: it renders the world what it is. It is, therefore, a moral act: it has consequences.”*
1. What went well?
We partnered with Ipsos to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by academic leaders and funders. Over 100 institutional leaders contributed to the report and shared their valuable insights and perspectives. The report highlights the top priorities of university leaders: securing funding, ensuring research and educational excellence, improving their institution’s impact on society, health and the environment, attracting and retaining talented staff and achieving social equity.
- On a personal level, a couple of key deliverables got over the line after multiple complexities and a couple of set backs and thanks to great support from other people.
2. What was difficult?
- Listening to myself on Hazel’s podcast Endings telling the story of my stroke and recovery
3. What was the best bit of advice you were given?
- “Let it go. You encounter bumps in the road, and then you move on.”
4. Who or what inspired you?
- YS, who was speaking and answering questions in a team meeting. (Coincidentally, it was also this month that he was given the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the London Book Fair, recognising his contributions to the publishing industry.)
- Exploring the question “What Would Nature Do?” with Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination and partners at King’s College, as part of this year’s Cambridge Festival.
5. What made you proud?
- The work we are doing to measurably improve diversity, equity and inclusion in our workplace.
- Elsevier was rated as the best place to work for people in software engineering teams. (We’re also named in the top 10 international companies for workplace culture and for people in sales.)
6. What did you learn?
- Apparently there are now more dead people on Facebook than people who are alive.
- ‘Enshittification’ is a term coined by Cory Doctorow to describe how platforms can become worse and worse over time, reflecting a pattern he observed of decreasing quality in online products and services.* The American Dialect Society made it their Word of the Year for 2023.*
(I’m slow to this.) - Procrastination is an emotion-regulation problem. It’s not a time management problem. It’s about (not) dealing with our feelings.*
“Have you finished your rice?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Then wash your bowl.”*
7. What did you get reminded of?
- Saying “I don’t know” can be a way of not engaging with a question or topic. But equally/alternatively it can be the start of a deeper inquiry. And keying into the felt sense that relates to the not knowing can be a way of opening up that inquiry, as Alex noted. (“Not knowing is most intimate,” as a zen master once put it.)
- When you’re thinking about how to design a meeting, start with user needs
- The importance of staying engaged and managing your energy when have lots of online meetings
- When Neil Vass blew my mind and opened my eyes to different types of teams (back in August 2021):
- One value I get from writing monthnotes is that I have a record of some of my key learnings, which I can then later refer back to and share with people
8. What books did you read?
- The Talented Mr Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith (HT Woody)
- The Feeling of What Happens: Body, emotion and the making of consciousness, by Antonio Damasio (from the reading list for my Somatic Experiencing training)
9. What touched you?
- Unsolicited feedback:
Often you never know the impact you have on someone else’s life.
But when someone takes the trouble to tell let you know that you helped them, it’s priceless. I had several examples this month:
Someone I coached last year took the time to write to me to say thank you and express their gratitude for ‘the significant impact’ I’d had on their professional growth, adding that they still revisit they notes they took during our sessions and continue to gain valuable insights from them for their ongoing development. I was super touched.
Similarly, I bumped into someone I worked with on a project I led three years ago, and they told me it was the most inspirational time in their professional career. I was amazed. I had no idea.
And (unsolicited) I received my first testimonial from someone I’ve been supporting through Somatic Experiencing, saying the work had been “very impactful” for them.
10. What poems touched you?
- We have come to be danced, by Jewel Mathieson
- Dust of Snow, by Robert Frost
- The Wineskin, by Henry Shukman
- Drifting, by Mary Oliver
- Ghosteen Speaks, by Nick Cave
- Spell Against Indifference, by Maria Popova
- Daffodils, by William Wordsworth (aka ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ — the famous first line)
- A reading of TS ELiot’s ‘Little Gidding’ (from Four Quartets):
- Late fragment, by Raymond Carver:
11. What else touched you?
- A book study group
- A complete stranger helped me get off a train:
I was late realising that it was my stop, and struggling to get off with an armful full of things (laptop, charger, phone, etc), when I dropped my bag and it spilled open. They picked it up and put everything back in for me, meaning that I managed to get off the train in time, and got my next, connecting train. Thank you stranger!
“we all need help sometimes”
12. What was fun?
- Discovering mixes I’d not heard before of Prince tracks
- Watching 100s of Cambridge bikers go past our house in fancy dress for their charity Easter egg run, delivering Easter chocolate to the children’s wards of Addenbrookes Hospital
- Seeing friends
13. What did you enjoy?
- Dancing on a Monday morning with Jason and on a Friday night with Tim— the perfect way to book end my working week. Also did a weekend workshop with Jason.
- A visit to UCL — hearing from customers, and seeing the cheery blossom in the Japanese garden and Jeremy Bentham’s preserved skeleton
- A trip to Hebdon Bridge to practice Somatic Experiencing with colleagues from my training course
- Discovering the artwork of Helena Perry
- Seeing Sam Lee sing live again
- Nature: seeing waterfalls (in Hebden Bridge), birds (lapwings in a field, a sparrowhawk in our garden, skylarks, woodpeckers) and the first butterflies of the year, and eating asparagus for the first time this year
“Only that day dawns to which we are awake” Thoreau
14. What are you looking forward to in April?
- A dawn chorus gathering
- The start of my second year of training in Somatic Experiencing
