James King

Attending a book launch

I went to a book launch last night because I am related to the author and wanted to be “celebrity adjacent”. The theory being that if I don’t spend years to extensively research and right a book, I can just turn up and claim some fame based on standing there while the author shared her wisdom.

But it got better than that – I actually picked up a heap of ideas to try out in my life.

The book is called “Win the Night to Win the Day” by Penelope Barr (my famous cousin). It is about the benefits of sleep and also some things to do to improve your life with less burnout and more recuperation.

I like to claim that I myself have a lot of experience in going to sleep, maintaining a practice of sleeping nearly every day. But it turned out that even in the discussion there was a lot more to it.

Actually there are practical ideas in there

I have not read the book yet but it has inspired me to try out some small experiments. One is actually waking up in the morning and deliberately taking time to stretch, walk, journal and NOT check the news immediately.

I have been trying this one day in a row, so not much data. I will see if it does seem to make a material difference.

But that is not the point of my heading, during the discussion about the book, I realised that there was a negative behaviour I practice while still awake.

I go to a lot of meetings, which is fun, but one can run into the next and I can end the day with a blur of thinking but no time to digest it.

I already have meeting free periods where I walk, have a tea or wander off to recharge. I also feel I am pretty good at focusing during a meeting.

I manage meetings, but what about managing “between meetings”

But what about the transition from one meeting to another? In publishing, I am told, you should have negative space (or white space) on the page to allow the viewer to experience the positive space.

If I finish one meeting, talk to someone on the way to the next meeting and then start a totally new topic, my brain has no chance to enjoy the equivalent of negative space. Filling a whole day with activity with no transition (ending, new beginning) could be causing my brain to buzz with the need to package all the disparate parts together.

The consequence is a mismatched set of puzzle pieces

Having a brain buzzing to solve an impossible problem, like building a jigsaw from the pieces of different puzzles. is more likely to cause burnout than progress.

It is just crowded conversations and ideas smashed together without a theme and without a way to consolidate the parts. Random pieces of different puzzles, never quite fitting together.

A small change

So my experiment for the next week is to experiment with creating space (negatives space) between the meetings.

But rather than just taking a break, I will end a meeting by telling myself what the end of the meeting was and writing it down. Then my brain can park that meeting and know it ended.

I will then start the next meeting by telling myself that I am in a new meeting about “hopefully and agenda”. I like to know what a meeting is for, but I will try to quickly capture what the meeting will do “who am I here?” “what is this about?”.

I want to find out if deliberately transitioning from one thing to then next in a concrete way settles my brain and allows better focus.

The success will be if it works like learning and teaching – where you should alternate focused and diffused thinking in pomodoros. But rather than just starting a focused time I will look at the transition.