Category: stories

Happy Hybrid Halloween… or the spooky side of virtual working.

It’s my third week as a hybrid organisation of one, and I am enjoying the new working routine! It’s very busy and also tiring to have so many new things to deal with each day, but it’s very much what I was expecting.

What I am missing at times is of course the colleagues I have worked with for many years, and in a more abstract sense, a bit of fun and interaction that comes with being part of a team. From the research I have done about hybrid working and virtual teams, I know that it takes a lot of effort and intention. So I set about making my own fun.

Regular readers will be very familiar with Posey, my dog, who for the past three years (well, nearly) has kept a faithful vigil next to my desk. Together we get through long conference days, difficult meetings, research reports and course design. And Posey is a dog who knows how to make her own fun. Sometimes just by rolling round on the carpet in the sunshine, or with her favourite cuddly toy.

But back to Halloween and hybrid working. In case the connection seems tenuous, I think Halloween is a good example of the kind of thing that in a co-located working environment is hard to miss. Cafes and canteens may have seasonal treats or pumpkin flavoured everything. There is likely to be talk of trick or treating… plans for the holidays and so on. Interaction like the ‘Secret Santa’ gift exchange is hard to replicate when you are in a team that’s distributed across the globe or when, like me, you are a team of one.

The ‘spooky’ side of home and hybrid working is that it can often feel quite lonely or isolated. Sometimes you don’t talk to another human being all day, and when you finally step away from your desk it’s dark outside. Days can easily blend into each other into one long grey slog.

Marking days like Halloween or a change in season provides me a bit of inspiration to have some fun, be silly and join into activities that I wouldn’t usually, and which can make my day more memorable.

This year, I am organising some radio with the wonderful folk at Reclaim Hosting, as part of my work with them. Get ready for Reclaim Halloween Radio on DS106radio come October 31st! I have some small decorations in my office as well, some autumn blooms and a small pumpkin and… fun tights to wear in orange and purple. Some of you may roll their eyes here, but those of us who appreciate those things will understand. In my mind, everything that helps inject some fun into my day is fair game.

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24/10/2023
Running. Trials and tribulations.

I have been blogging about getting back into running for the past two years. This journey back into running has felt really tough at times, and at the same time I am well aware that it doesn’t signify in the face of what many others face daily, especially in these often gloomy times.

This is blogging as personal record keeping, and as such only really of interest if you are prepared to suspend the ‘so what!?!?’ instinct for a while.

The story so far

In 2021, I blogged about reclaiming my morning run, and making my way back to running… little did I know that shortly after I wrote those posts I would have to stop not only running but exercise all together for a long while. Then in December 2022 I tried to get back into it again… and now, six months later I have (I hope) finally reached a new milestone.

Rather than blogging about hoping to get back into running, I am now actually running. Phew! and YAY!

Last month I ran 5k for the second time this year and now I am back to running 3-4 times a week, slowly working my way up from 5k to 10k and beyond. I’m blogging about this (admittedly unimpressive) achievement not because of what I did, slowly plod along for 3 miles on a sunny Sunday, but because of what it represents to me: this run was very hard won.

At the start of this year I finally recovered from a serious, year-long shoulder injury. It took far more time, money and effort to restore my shoulder to normal mobility than I ever imagined and once I was able to get dressed on my own again and attend a gentle yoga class, I assumed the job was done. I felt ready to return to my usual activities.

As I’d kept working throughout most of the year that I was injured, taking some days off for hospital treatment and physio, and kept doing lots of things as normally as possible, it didn’t really sink in for a while how much strength, flexibility and fitness I’d lost overall, or how much physical confidence.

Fortunately I can afford to keep going to see my physio every 4 weeks, and with his help I started the long journey back to being able to do things. Obviously day to day activities were the main focus of my recovery: being able to get dressed again on my own, getting things from kitchen cupboards.. being able to walk the dogs on my own. Being able to travel for work, carrying a laptop case and so on. Physical exercise however did and continues to play an important role as it helps not only my body but also my mental health.

Running, which has long been my most effective coping strategy for a stressful and demanding week, started 30 seconds at a time. Then a minute. Then two.

After 3-4 months, over the course of this spring, I got used to doing 30 min of exercise again. A big achievement. Although my phone unhelpfully reminded me that by every measure my efforts were ‘below average’, it meant a lot of progress for me. My yoga teacher was a big source of encouragement and helped me find some joy in moving my arms and legs, tentatively at first, fearful of pain and injury.

Brief rant about sports bras

Although I appreciate the sentiment that all you need for running is a pair of trainers and to head out of the door, my experience as a curvy middle aged woman has never really lived up to that. Anyone who’s ever wrestled into a sports bra with a 5 hook fastening at the back will appreciate that the combination of a shoulder injury that reduces mobility + getting back into running is not fun. I am still waiting for the promise of technology and design to deliver the hype that every single new overpriced sports bra promises for me and all the other people frequenting chat forums on chaffing and avoiding bounce.

Mind AND matter

I’ve always run for primarily my mental health, finding calm and release in the ritual of heading out in the mornings. In my most anxious years, I ran nearly every morning, capturing serene sunrises in all seasons. I also ran to raise money for the cancer charities supporting my mum’s recovery from lymphoma, and gradually half marathons became an achievable goal. Running felt empowering and gave me balance, as well as a connection to the outside world that I have missed a lot during the past few years when my weekly milage was low or nonexistent.

Once I got some fitness back and managed to get out of the door regularly, I was expecting things to get easier, but my body and my mind were not happy to cooperate. I had every ache and pain in the book after just minutes of running and a sense of fear and panic that was not helpful at all. A mile seemed entirely unachievable.

After a few weeks of being stopped in my tracks by this mental block, I tried a different approach: I tried a running meditation, headed out and had only one goal: run slowly for 5k and don’t stop no matter what. Slow down if you need to (I did) but do not stop. And… it worked. Mind AND matter, with a lot of help for the mind.

Now, a few weeks on, I am back to a regular routine, a very gentle one, but a routine nonetheless, for the first time in a long time and it feels great. I am back to listening to music or just letting my thoughts wander, enjoying the feeling that I have a bit of my morning all to myself before another busy day begins.

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16/06/2023
Tips for a week of complete rest
It’s the last day of my holidays today, and it’s been fantastic to have some time off work. It’s been quite a long time since I last went on a holiday trip abroad, and we had a week in Greece, which is not only my favourite foodie destination but also a country where I spent holidays when I was a kid and I thus have a lot of fond memories of this beautiful country.

The last few months, in the middle of a career transition and at the start of setting up my new business, have been BUSY. So this past week has been very precious time to rest and recharge. And there was a lot of that, fortunately.

The one downside of the holiday was that the travel in both directions turned out to be a lot more involved than hoped for and we arrived after midnight in both directions, but that was the only downside of the trip.

My partner and I had a lot of plans for trips and exploring the island, but enjoyed the rest and exercise we had on our doorstep so much, that we focused on that instead. I loved having time for yoga, running, mini golf and plenty of reading at the pool and no emails, professional online presence, creating content or work on my business at all.

It’s taken me a long time to be able to step away from all types of work all together, and for me, having a complete week off is a big milestone.. as well as a reflection of how busy I have recently been in every aspect of my practice. I felt depleted enough to be motivated to have a complete break.

I took some practical steps to ensure that I had a complete break, and I wanted to share some tips that worked for me in the past week:
- I completed a holiday handover, with my amazing colleagues and deputy, and then logged off all work systems completely on my last day at work;
- No laptops came on holiday, and all computers at home where switched off when work ended;
- I deleted all work-related apps from my phone or switched notifications off completely, included direct messaging, emails, and task management apps;
- I logged out of/deleted all social media apps, like Twitter and LinkedIn, that I only use in a professional context;
- calendar notifications were switched off or paused
- A simply note to make a list of anything that I thought of, which were work related and which I wanted to pick up upon my return;
- I intentionally packed books, audiobooks and other entertainment that would help me focus on things other than work.
Now that I am back from my break, I feel much more rested and relaxed, and I have enjoyed taking a step back. It’s given me a different perspective which feels helpful in lots of ways. Here are some things I am doing to ease myself back into my busy schedule…
- Plan for a balanced week, which includes realistic goals, not ALL the things that I left undone when I went on holiday;
- Make time for fun and self care;
- Focus on habits that safeguard the energy I have gathered during my time off, such as making time for exercise, sleeping, breaks during the day, and so forth;
- Give myself time to reflect on my trip and how I feel to be back at home (plus cuddling our dogs, which I have really missed a lot).
One thing that has stayed with me is how much I enjoyed a break in a new place, days filled with new experiences. It’s been a long time since I had that much ‘newness’ packed into a single week, and that has given me a lot of joy.
14/05/2023
#IWD2023: A personal moment of gratitude

For the past ten years, I have focused on celebrating International Women’s Day in a professional context, and I am lucky indeed to be part of networks and groups that help me grow and learn about equality and equity in education and the non-profit sector. Ever since my student days I have found so much inspiration and strength in the people I work with and I am grateful indeed to all the amazing colleagues, collaborators and co-conspirators I have know. I salute you!

This year, as I am in the middle of a career transition and a bit overloaded with online activity just now, I want to take a more personal approach, and use this International Women’s Day for a moment of personal gratitude: gratitude for the women in my life whom I don’t often talk about on this blog: my friends and family, my personal network.

Growing and learning and contributing is never done in isolation, and I am grateful indeed for the inspiration, support and appreciation that keep me going no matter what the day may bring.

Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash

08/03/2023
Blogging for 2023: private and public posts

… and we are off. The first, shiny new blog post of the year is here!

I hope you had a restful end to 2022 and are looking forward to what 2023 may bring. I am still on holiday, having taken some overdue leave and I am enjoying the extra rest. It’s giving me time to catch up with my thoughts, do some exercise and celebrate my partner’s birthday with a trip to the coast.

Back to blogging. Literally. I am kicking off my year of blogging by writing about blogging: for the first time in a few years, I have set up a new space for me to write in. A counterpart to this one, my primary domain, which offers me a private space for articulating my thoughts.

Two spaces?

It’s actually more than two spaces to write in, as I like to write a lot. I have paper based and digital journals, in which I write with blue and black ink and I like the speed of writing with a fountain pen as well as the sound it makes. A noise I had forgotten for a while.

I also have plenty of digital spaces to write in, mostly work-related, from social media, others’ platforms and this site, my own space.

It’s useful for me to have more than one space, as it helps me write about the different things I am interested in, and with different readers in mind.

Most people know me online through my day job, and they may not necessarily want to read about lots of unrelated things. I have tried in the past to bring everything I do together, but over time I have found that having separate spaces works better for me.

Why private?

This is a topic I have written about before, as I have always had different degrees of openness in my practice. It helps me to have a private space: it makes me feel safe to be completely honest, to write things down that I am still puzzling out, and to have a space to work through doubts or worries. It also gives me a space to revel in being me.

Most importantly, I find it fun to set up a new space for myself. It gives me a wonderful sense of turning over a new leaf. It’s the start of something.

I came across something I blogged about in 2018, about how completing something fun is an important part of my practice:

As often as I can, I dedicate some time to doing something fun. For example, I enjoy making a web page and publishing it. Or making an image for something. Or reading/writing something. It doesn’t really matter what it is, it’s about completing it and getting a sense of achievement from it. A quick win. A lot of what I work on is a) long term, b) invisible or c) collaborative and so in order to balance these with feeling that I have accomplished something I often do ‘something fun’ and see it completed. It reminds me of how good I am at making things happen and often helps me see bigger, more complex things through to completion with a greater sense of confidence.

Setting up a new space to write ticks all those boxes. It’s a quick win. It’s fun. It gives me a sense to have achieved something and it’s only the 3rd January…

03/01/2023
Blogging about blogging

It’s Monday and the temperature outside has plummeted to (for UK standards) freezing temperatures. Since the start of this month I have blogged more often again, aiming for a post on most weekdays. In the best tradition of the medium, I am going to blog about blogging today.

Why now?

During the recent [insert your own word here] on Twitter, and a subsequent re-activation of my Mastodon account, I was reading some really interesting reflections on what folk were hoping to leave behind (on Twitter), what they were hoping to find and contribute to (on Mastodon) and what they aim for overall with their digital presence.

It made me feel both sad and hopeful. Most of all, it made me consider what it is that I WANT from my time here on the internet.

Not the activities that are part of my day job for which I need to maintain profiles on particular platforms, but those parts that are shaped by what I want to do and who I want to interact with.

Which brought me back to my own domain, this space, that for many years has been my own platform, unchanged by the ebbs and flows of digital fortunes.

Thanks to Reclaim Hosting (#4life) I have long been able to administrate and safeguard my own space, giving me a channel for my own voice, my things, my creativity and projects.

What am I hoping for?

My blog has a regular readership in the hundreds, so not particularly huge, and I mostly blog for myself. Sometimes to curate resources to refer to, sometimes to share practical tips, but largely it’s a space for me to think about what I am interested in and share parts of that.

In 2020 I really struggled for what to say. Work kept going, but my professional practice was so dominated by the crisis response, that I found it hard to articulate anything.

Since then, I have published a lot on different platforms, but most of it is very much directed at the work I do, focused on projects like my book or specific events.

More recently, with the Twitter/Mastodon conversation in full swing, I came to the conclusion that I need to blog more. To hear my own voice represented here. I am not sure yet whether I really ‘need’ another social media platform, federated or otherwise, but I do want my own space to be alive and kicking. I started blogging more than 20 years ago (and I can’t believe that I am old enough for that to be true) and I am grateful that I can continue that practice here, on my own domain.

12/12/2022