Bellwethers and self-awareness

I was interested to discover the original meaning of bellwether – it’s the leading sheep of a flock, with a bell on its neck. So now you know too!

Of course it’s the other meaning that we tend to focus on nowadays – the indicator of a trend concept.

Why was I thinking about any of this in relation to self-awareness and developing daily disciplines? Well, over recent years I’ve identified a few triggers that indicate that I’m a bit off form. I don’t mean anything dramatic, just little things that happen ordinarily when I’m OK, but somehow slip away when I’m not. I use them as wee warnings that I need to take some time to work out what’s going on. Sometimes it’s simply physical (for example, I’ve had a cold recently), but it’s harder to recognise when it’s emotional. Of course, the change in demeanour doesn’t (usually) happen overnight. Hence the bellwethers, the wee things that might show you that everything’s not quite hunky-dory.

Some of the things that are indicators for me include:
- Reading the newspaper every day
- Trimming my beard regularly
- Polishing shoes

There are others, but it’s quite a dull list – those three are the highlights!! The point of this entry – if there is one – is to suggest that developing these bellwethers might just help you to spot that things are heading south, as early as possible.

Of course, once you spot it you need to do something about it!

One degree of change

If anyone is still keeping an eye on this blog, you must have noticed a bit of a gap between entries.

The thing is that I've gathered piles and piles of material relating to daily disciplines and practices, but I didn't want to start posting here until I had organised it thematically with at least an inkling of the order that I would use for the first few entries. Well, surprisingly, the pile has grown and is more disorganised than ever.

How can this be?

Well, one of the disciplines that I need to develop is organising! And another is to stop procrastinating.

So I'm going to post here more consistently - it might be a bit random and disorganised, but maybe as I start to work through the material things will become a bit clearer. If not, I might have a bit of fun along the way. And, at the very least, I'll manage to get rid of some of the paper that's piling up in the study!

It's one degree of change - a small shift which might lead to big results.

Back to work: Keep going

The final couple of thoughts/rules - call them what you will!

Firstly, tackle the backolg methodically. You'll need to work out your own method. I have some thoughts, which I might post another time - but I would advocate that you do not start at the top of the pile (physical or electronic) and work your way down.

Secondly, set realistic daily targets and stick to them. making progress against these targets is a great incentive to keep going - especially mid-afternoon on day 3, when you feel thoroughly jaded (the Scots word 'scunnered' covers it very well!).

Finally, take a few moments as you're tackling your mountain to remember something positive from your break ... then start again until you hit your target for the day!

Back to work: Hold your nerve

Some more rules for going back to work…

Plan ahead – assuming that you know when you’re going to be away from work for a while (apart from sickness etc), plan your diary for your return. How you approach this will depend on the type of work you do. I try to keep the first day back as clear as possible. This allows me to make a dent in the backlog and – importantly – to wander round and have a chat with my colleagues and staff group. I also like to keep a couple of half days clear later in the week, to allow for further catching up and to provide space for meetings to deal with anything important that has cropped up while I’ve been away.

Having said this, I must confess that planning ahead isn’t always successful - in which case…

Count the days properly – If your diary is packed with meetings, or attending conferences etc as soon as you return to work, then you can’t expect to catch up during that time. I draw a distinction between ‘calendar day 1’ – the first day that I’m officially back at work - and ‘virtual day 1’ – the first day that I have control over my diary. I then plot my progress in eliminating the backlog from virtual day 1.

Keep up! – earlier in my career I would try to prioritise the backlog and then add in new work as it came in. I found this to be very frustrating and it seemed that I never managed to catch up with the backlog. Nowadays, I endeavour to keep up with the incoming stuff, rather than adding it to my backlog. This might be a bit idiosyncratic, but it works for me!!

Final batch of rules to follow…

Back to work: DON’T PANIC!

Just like the warning on the Hitch-Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy - not like Corporal Jones in Dad's Army!!

Going back to work after holidays seems to turn normally rational people into gibbering idiots.

I was speaking to a colleague recently who was lamenting that she hadn’t caught up with e-mail by lunchtime of her first day back (after two weeks holiday). For several years now, I’ve taken the view that unless I’m completely redundant or ludicrously over-resources with staff, there will be a backlog when I return to work. Nowadays it’s mainly e-mail for me – but whatever it is, don’t make the mistake of knocking yourself out by trying to catch up all at once.

I’ve developed some rules/ approaches – call them what you will – which seem to work for me. I’ll share them over the next couple of days.

My first rule is DON’T PANIC. If your organisation didn’t collapse while you were on holiday, the chances are that it will survive for a few days while you catch up on the backlog. Alternatively, if it’s on the brink of collapse because you’ve taken a holiday, it’s probably not worth catching up anyway!

My second rule is the rule of ‘double time’. This doesn’t mean that I get paid extra for catching up. Nor does it mean that I put in heaps of extra time to focus on it. It does mean that I set myself a target for restoring stability – if I’ve been away for a day, I give myself two days; one week = two weeks; two weeks = four weeks. (At this point I’m going to assume that you can multiply time by two and, therefore, not provide any more examples.)

More rules to follow shortly…

Moderation

I think that I want to moderate some of what I said in my previous entry - it was maybe a wee bit self-centred.

I'm a morning person - always have been. So my encouragement to get up early and spend time reflecting was based on my own preferences and habits. It would have been more appropriate to have encouraged readers to find some time during each day to be still and think about the things that are of ultimate importance to you.

If you can do it at the same time each day - that's great. If you can't (maybe working irregular shifts), you'll know best how to fit it in.

A thought was triggered this morning (listening to a sermon on podcast) - for many people, summer is a pretty good time to try to find this kind of space. A lot of regular activities take a break, so there can be fewer commitments. In my particular example, it's easier to get up a bit earlier when it's daylight outside and relatively warm (I'm hoping that it's an established habit by the time winter comes!). It's also a time when there seems to be a positive feeling in the air, and maybe holidays provide an opportunity for reflection - as well as relaxation and fun.

Start the day the Bill Murray way

Does the fact that I've been neglecting my blog about developing daily disciplines tell you something? Well, I'm back.

The Bill Murray way refers to a friend of ours who died several years ago. Bill was a lovely man and a devoted Christian. He was very supportive to me through all of the years that I knew him. Yet we came from radically different perspectives on almost everything.

So how did Bill start his day? By getting up early and spending time praying and reading his Bible. (Bill could quote as much of the Bible as anyone I've ever known.) Bill's definition of early was 5:30 a.m.

Recently I've adopted this approach too - yes, up at 5:30 - and I feel fantastic after about 4 weeks. I feel that the day is getting off to the best possible start. Mornings seem calmer, and I still leave for work by 7:00.

I would encourage you to find a way to spend time early in the morning - reading, praying, studying. Take your mind away from yourself. I call it heightened focus - lifting my eyes from the ordinary to the extraordinary, so that I may serve the ordinary better.

5 minutes

As I receive mail I allocate it in a variety of ways (more of that in another entry). Something that I've been trying to introduce recently is my "5 minutes" folder. The idea is that if I think something will take a short period of time (5 minutes is a loose measure of time) and it's not urgent (most things aren't), then I put it in my "5 minutes" folder.

Throughout the day as I finish a task, have time between meetings or need a break from something, I turn to the "5 minutes" folder and deal with something from start to finish. It's quite productive and satisfying. By turning to it a few times each day I find that there isn't an accumulation of stuff in it - and if it is getting too full, I know it's time to concentrate on thinning it out.

It works for paper and electronic material, and also for reading stuff. In theory it should work at home as well as work - but somehow I haven't managed to get sufficiently organised at home.

Caffeine control

One of the earliest daily disciplines that I consciously adopted was controlling my caffeine intake.

I used to suffer from hideous migraine, lasting up to 48 hours. Then I made some changes to my lifestyle and I haven’t had a migraine for over 3 years now.

Addressing my significant caffeine intake was one of the things that I changed. (By the way, I’m following the adventures of AnneDroid as she is attempting to tackle her caffeine consumption.)

Now I like coffee – my preferred way of taking caffeine – and I wasn’t really prepared to give it up completely. So my solution for too much caffeine was to drink coffee only before lunchtime (a somewhat vague measure of time), and to be quite strict about the volume. On a work day that means a cup of coffee with breakfast and some coffee (a somewhat vague measure of volume) in the middle of the morning.

I freely admit to being a coffee snob. I only drink instant coffee when held at gunpoint. So the important part of this discipline for me – is to only drink good coffee. This does mean planning ahead sometimes and taking filter coffee from home in my thermal cup, but it does mean that I haven’t resented the reduction in quantity as the habit has become firmly embedded in my daily disciplines.

Thrupenny thoughts??

Where did the name for this blog come from?

Well, originally it was going to be called “DDD” (as in Developing Daily Discipline), but I thought that might attract the wrong kind of attention – and therefore disappoint readers!

My next thought was 3d, which seemed a lot safer but still carried the potential to confuse.

Then I realised that 3d was how we used to depict threepence (thrupence) in writing. (Yes, I remember using pre-decimilisation British coinage.) This coin would have a relative low value nowadays (slightly more than one penny). It’s also multi-sided – a quaint feature of some British coins, which I like. It’s actually a duodecagon (that’s 12 sided).

So Thrupenny Thoughts seemed to be an appropriate name and metaphor for a blog that will cover different aspects of developing daily discipline (multi-sided), with the thoughts being of limited value in their own right!

Well, it makes sense to me!

Developing Daily Discipline

Over the past decade or so I’ve been collecting articles, snippets, tips and ideas that I have come to associate with ‘developing daily discipline’. The first time that I can find myself using that term specifically was in December 2005, when I was maintaining a reflective journal for a course that I was on at the time. I wrote:

“I’ve written frequently in this journal about: ‘I need to …’. While it’s good to identify areas for improvement, ideas need to be put into practice. For me – I think – this is most likely to happen if changes are introduced as daily disciplines.”

Since then I’ve been a bit more conscious of gathering material on a variety of topics that can loosely be associated with this theme. So I’ve decided to start posting some of them in this blog.

Very few of them will be in any way original; many will be simple; many will be idiosyncratic or even self-centred. Over the years some of these disciplines have changed; some have been completely jettisoned; others exist as ideas that have yet to be tested by me.

Feel free to add comments, include your own ideas or variations on the theme.

I’ll probably post a couple of thoughts each week, but there are no promises!