The benefits of a monthly round-up

It’s long been my practice to regularly record what I am up to, and I update my personal archive with links to talks and podcasts and resources that I have contributed to or published elsewhere.

I find it useful to have a list that covers most of what I do for reflection, the annual appraisal process and professional development. It’s also a great short-cut for compiling my monthly newsletter, which in itself provides an opportunity to reflect on my practice.

Using my monthly newsletter for reflection

It’s useful to get into the habit of taking a monthly look back at what I have done, and review what I have worked on and published. Usually I have a lot of different things on the go at the same time, and it’s easy to forget something that’s happened all together.

Looking at my blog posts for the month gives me a chance to think about aspects of my work I have enjoyed and want to do more of, things I’d prefer to spend less time on, what I want to focus on in the coming month and what is going on the back burner or stopping all together.

This kind of approach, focusing on what to stop/start or do more/less of is generally helpful, but I find it particularly effective when I review what I have been working on and can use specific examples: for instance, in the past month I blogged a lot about two topics specifically related to my coaching practice, but posted five or six posts that are more reflective on a diverse range of topics.

It’s been useful to push myself to blog regularly, as it’s one of my intentions for the year to blog more regularly and strengthen my own voice on a range of topics, and that’s resulted in me writing more off the cuff reflective posts. Blog posts about coaching generally take more time to research, draft and edit and usually include links to resources or tools that I want to share, which means that I don’t produce them as frequently.

Another insight I gained from looking at my recent activity was an appreciation of work I have done with others, such as the LTHE chat a few days ago. In practice, much of my collaborations happened tightly packed in between meetings and deadlines and often I don’t get a lot of time to full appreciate these moments until afterwards.

Last year, I struggled to make time to blog regularly, and that’s a final benefit of compiling my monthly newsletter: it helps keep me accountable to myself 🙂

Here is a look at my February newsletter

Welcome to the February edition of my monthly newsletter. I hope you had a good start to the year so far. I for one am glad that the days are getting a little longer again and that there is more daylight for after work dog walks. January has been a productive month, and hopefully there is something in this month’s updates, blog posts and podcasts that is helpful or inspiring to you.

My own domain is where I blog about all things that interest me, recent projects, coaching resources, books I have read and what inspires my professional practice. Recent blog posts:

I am really excited to share a glimpse at my next project: How to… Lead Virtual Teams – a course in ten podcasts. The course is free to join and open to all. It is designed for emerging and established leaders and managers working in a hybrid or fully virtual setting. The course offers you opportunities to listen, reflect and explore. If you are curious about what’s in store, read the preview blog post How to… Lead Virtual Teams. and look out for a new podcast episode coming out soon.

Each week I share ideas and strategies for creative and fun approaches to help you succeed and lead in the hybrid workplace. Recent podcast episodes:

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