Maren Deepwell

Author: Maren Deepwell

  • Office Party for One

    Office Party for One

    It’s the season for office parties, and I am in a festive mood. In this holiday-themed post (and on the podcast, too), I want to share a few of the ways in which I reflect on, celebrate and end the year. If you are a fellow freelancer or small business owner, you might find inspiration for your own celebration here.

    Like you, I’ve been to a lot of office parties and work do’s, and most of them weren’t all that festive and bright, but some years it all came together and we had a lot of fun together. So in my “Office Party for One” I’ve tried to keep the best bits of what I enjoy and add my own twist of reflective spirit to come up with a end of year celebration that brings me joy and is highly practical, too.

    Party hat optional.

    Reflect

    All of my rituals for the end of the year start with reflection, either on the blog, or in conversation or written down in my progress reports. If you’d like to play along, here are some of my favourite reflective prompts for the end of the year:

    • What do you remember most?
    • When did things not go as planned?
    • How have things shifted over the past year?
    • What do you want to take into the new year?
    • What can be left behind?
    • What do you want more of in 2026?

    Most of the time, just clearing the decks feels like a win as work starts to compete with preparations for the holidays, so I set aside dedicated time to try and capture and reflect.

    One of my favourite activities is to go through my emails and social media and file away any positive feedback or inspiring interactions I’ve had (for which I keep a dedicated folder). Sometimes that includes more formal feedback, from workshops I have run or from coaching clients or project evaluations, and often it also includes personal messages, like a meaningful thank you note or encouraging DM.

    I also file away certificates or details about any professional development I’ve done, ready to refer to when I big for new projects or renew a professional certification.

    Once the reflection is done, it’s time to celebrate.

    Celebrate

    One of the biggest joys of being my own boss is that I get to decide what to do for my office party, and whom to invite. Some years, that means it’s just me, a good book and a warm cosy evening in front of the fire. Or even an early night. Some years I venture into the city and enjoy a festive afternoon or even a night out. Often my husband gets an invite, and we join forces for our “office party” and exchange small gifts, Secret Santa style.

    Remote working has so many advantages, and I generally love running my business from home. That said, joining in with festive fun, and feeling the buzz of people, the glittering street lights and the enticing smells of Christmas market treats makes an end of year celebration a lot more fun.

    End the Year

    The end of the year is my quietest time of the year as most of my clients and collaborators down tools. I take advantage of no longer being the one whom everyone calls in case of emergency, and so I take a week or two completely off, to rest, recharge and spend time away from screens.

    Sometimes I use the time to make progress on creative projects (my book in progress is looking at me, demanding my attention) and sometimes I just switch off and use the time to get outside, play games and cuddle the dogs.

    My OoO auto-reply goes on, my inbox goes quiet and I tidy away work for another year.

    I’ll be sharing my end of year reflections in the next post. What will you take away from 2025?

    Happy Holidays!

  • The year in blog posts… 2025

    The year in blog posts… 2025

    It is nearly time to wrap up blogging for another year, and I’m feeling all festive. Shout out to Jim Groom, who is blogging at all hours in the run up to celebrating 20 years of his bavatuesdays blog. Over here on my own domain, things are progressing at a more leisurely pace, and it’s time to look at what’s been happening on the blog over the course of the year.

    In 2023 I posted 72 posts on here, and last year I made it to 65, and this year has been another excellent year with 61 posts. Although this era of tracking everything makes one feel that all progress curves should be going up, not down, I am delighted that I have kept up my blogging practice for another year.

    It’s becoming harder to make ones voice heard across federated, fragmented social spaces, and I don’t use this site to bring everything together, so every post I share elsewhere isn’t counted (and that’s OK).

    Instead, I am excited to look back at my year in blogging here, sharing what’s interesting to me, what I am working on and whatever else I come across that makes me curious.

    January (6 posts)

    February (6 posts)

    March (7 posts)

    April (4 posts)

    May (6 posts)

    June (4 posts)

    July (5 posts)

    August (4 posts)

    September (3 posts)

    October (6 posts)

    November (5 posts)

    December (5 posts)

    • Choose your own adventure
    • This post
    • Office Party for One (unpublished)
    • The year in review (unpublished)
    • Last post of the year (unpublished)

    As always, thank you for reading. And commenting. Here’s to the last three posts of the year. Coming soon.

    Share, like & subscribe 😉

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  • Choose your own adventure

    Choose your own adventure

    This month, as a little gift from me to you, you can join in with my leadership coaching subscription service, AKA Long Distance Leadership Postcards for free. I’ve made December free for all to access, and this month’s topic includes three free resources to explore.

    Explore the free resources

    Whether your 2025 has been busy and productive, or brought unexpected challenges, whether you are getting ready to rest or just about to set out in a new direction, I have designed this month’s coaching moment by mail to offer new inspiration and encouragement by focusing on your creativity, develop leadership capability or clear the decks with increased productivity.

    Over the last 12 months we have explored 11 Long Distance Leadership Postcard topics around creativity, digital wellbeing, productivity and leadership development. To celebrate the end of the first run of Long Distance Leadership Postcards, you get to choose your own topic – or explore all three! Whatever you choose to do, enjoy and take care as we close out 2025.

    Christmas logo for Long Distance Leadership Postcards

    Your guided tour

    If you’d like to get a guided tour, tune in to the episode below in which I walk you through each resources and how they could be useful to you. Enjoy!

    Coaching in 2026

    I’ve loved coaching with you this year and I am already looking forward to the new year. If you are curious about coaching with me, get in touch. I have some space opening for spring and also new pro bono sessions available if you’d like to try and give coaching with me a go for free.

    You can find out more about how I work and what my clients say about working with me on my coaching pages.

    Sign up to my free monthly newsletter to get new resources straight to your inbox.

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  • Celebrating my 3 year podcast anniversary

    Celebrating my 3 year podcast anniversary

    I can’t quite believe it’s been three years this month since I started my podcast, and a 130 episodes into the experiment, I feel it’s time to celebrate 🙂

    I’ve documented my journey as a podcaster in regular posts over the years, and looking back at these now, I’ve been reflecting on what I love about the show and this platform specifically, and also how I’m hoping to develop the podcast over the next year.

    Audio only

    One of the things that has changed since I first started the podcast is the arrival of video podcasts as a more popular format. Alongside that AI-powered tools have made it easier than before to produce podcasts, transcripts, and related content. Some platforms, like Google, now require shows to be submitted in video format, even if it’s just a holding slide.

    I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of things on the show, and for now, I’ve decided to keep to an audio only format. One of the reasons why I started the podcast is to enable my listeners to engage with my work whilst stepping away from the screen, and I want to continue to do that. The increased environmental impact of producing video content, especially using AI-tools, is another reason why I don’t really want to change.

    Special guests

    When I first started getting requests from agencies and individuals to come on the show I was quite excited and I tried a few episodes with special guests I hoped would be the right fit for the podcast. Over time however, I found that very few of the folk (and bots) who contact me are closely enough aligned to my approach to work as well as I’d like.

    Whilst it’s more work for me to approach, invite and liaise with guests myself, it also helps me ensure that the conversations are really relevant to my work, and hopefully that results in a more coherent and authentic offering for my audience, too.

    I am so grateful that over the past year or two more guests than ever have given up their time to come on the show and talk to me, and I am VERY excited about the line up for 2026 taking shape.

    Work on the next book

    Which brings us neatly to work on the next book, which many of the interviews I record for the show help inform. It’s a wonderful way to do research and supplies me with a huge volume of transcripts I can dig into as I progress with the project.

    Send me your ideas and requests

    I’ve recorded a celebration episode to mark the podcasts 3rd birthday, so enjoy the listen… AND get in touch to let me know what you’d like more of in 2026. If you have a topic request, would like to join me as a special guest or have any other comments or feedback, contact me . I look forward to hearing from you and thank you for listening 🙂

    The podcast is available on different podcast platforms and I hope you enjoy the show.

    Don’t miss new episodes, subscribe to my free monthly newsletter

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  • Member of ALT #4life.

    Member of ALT #4life.

    It’s not everyday that you get such an honour, to become an Honorary Life Member of the professional body you’ve belonged to for most of your career (read the ALT media release). It’s a huge privilege to join this illustrious group, to join peers whose work I admire and respect so much: Lorna Campbell and Josie Fraser, Frances Bell and Teresa MacKinnon, Julie Voce and Chris Jones, Linda Creanor and Seb Schmoller, Diana Laurillard and David Hawkridge.

    Screenshot from the AGM Presentation on 19th November 2025.

    ALT, the Association for Learning Technology, has been my professional home since I finished my PhD in 2008, and supports and empowers the community and networks I actively work with and in. Whilst working for ALT and serving as CEO, I maintained my own membership and successfully gained first Certified Membership (CMALT) and later Senior CMALT. I continue to act as an assessor for the scheme, and appreciate the opportunity to learn from peers going through the accreditation process.

    Like many fellow leaders in Learning Technology, I have brought a grounding in other disciplines to my work in Learning Technology and Open Education. That is one of the things I enjoy the most about working in this sector, as it makes for a rich theoretical context and practice, too. I arrived in the sector at a time of great change and economic crisis, and ever since then big waves of innovation, political and social change have continued to rock institutions and practitioners alike. Learning Technologists have thrived through it all, and have a lot of expertise and insight to share with other sectors, I feel.

    From serving on the FELTAG Ministerial Action Group, convened by the then Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise, Matthew Hancock and working with Diana Laurillard and Neil Morris on the hugely impactful Blended Learning Essentials courses; to laying the foundations for the AmplifyFE community of practice with Emma Procter-Legg and working on new pathways to accreditation and apprenticeships, my work in Learning Technology has been firmly anchored across sectors. FE, the sector in which I already felt welcome in at age 17, has always been a big focus for me, and ultimately led to my current work as a teacher, trainer and coach working with emerging and established leaders in education.

    My work with ALT Member organisations both for ALT and on a free-lance basis, including many Higher Education providers, expanded beyond the UK, and one of my fondest memories from the past decade is working with colleagues at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University under the BOLT project, and awarding CMALT certificates to a whole cohort of their staff in 2018/19.

    If there is one thing I have learnt by being part of this community it’s how much we have in common, across sectors and across international borders. In my work now in the UK, and with the team at Reclaim Hosting and Canadian and Irish colleagues in Open Education, I come across the same issues that ALT explored over the years. The technologies may change, and the context shifts, but at the heart of the work it’s still about empowering learners and educators in their use of technology, to be more ethical, equitable and sustainable.

    So thank you, fellow ALT Members, for this nomination and the honour to be recognised by the peers that mean the most to me. I look forward to continuing to contribute to the important work we do and support ALT and our community.

    Thank you.

  • Here’s to a decade of 10k.

    Here’s to a decade of 10k.

    It’s been nearly ten years since I started blogging about running 10k. Like many people I started running looking for balance at a very stressful time in my life, and ten years later I still run for mental health, to help manage stress and busy periods. I also love getting more outdoors and the headspace that comes with clocking up the miles.

    #RaceForLife – a thank you

    From the first beginnings of my running journey, that’s always been a distance that I enjoyed training for. It’s long enough to be challenging but not so long that you get too many injuries. It takes (for me) just over an hour, but not three or four hours and thus even “long run Sundays” aren’t too disruptive. It’s a fairly social distance, too. Easy to do together.

    #RaceForLife – this year we are a mother + daughter team

    Between 2017-2019 then I did A LOT of running, but after that pandemic life got in the way, and from 2020 onwards, I had many false starts getting back into it and finding my stride:

    Running. Trials and tribulations.

    For literally years I started and stopped, never finding a path forward for more than a few weeks. There was a lot happening in life and other priorities kept popping up, as well as long term injuries that stopped most exercise in its tracks for 18 months or more.

    Then a year ago, I set out on a new plan, scaling back my ambitions to what felt more achievable, and embarked on my year of 10k in 2025. I kept blogging about it, more to offer myself some encouragement than anything else:

    Coaching tips from my year of 10k races

    And now, as autumn rolls around once again, I am looking at the medals I’ve collected over the course of the year, and I can’t quite believe that it’s actually happened. I have been running for over a year, and along the way I kept to my 10k promise, completing four of the five races I had signed up for this year.

    Yay me!

    Together with my husband I motored through a year of training, a year which didn’t make consistent exercise easy, and one which threw enough curve balls to derail our efforts every couple of months. There was the day when it rained so hard we skipped a race and stayed at home, the month we got married and training went out of the window and the endless weeks of rainy weather that come with living in the green land of South Wales. My training chart thus never looks perfect, and my body had other plans than running for some of the year, too.

    But.

    I did it anyway. And I am so pleased that I’m back at it. Now, where’s that Half Marathon training plan…?