For me, the trouble with having a day, or a week, or a month on which we celebrate a particular group of people, or a particular relationship, or a particular sacrifice, is that doing so allows us to forget about these things for the rest of the year.
If these things really mattered to us, shouldn’t we be addressing the issues they raise every day?
Here’s an idea to cheer yourself up.
Reach out to someone you haven’t seen for years – an old colleague, a school friend, a fellow hobbyist – for a catch-up.
Chances are it will work wonders.
For both of you.
Thanks to John Hakim for doing that for me today – it was like old times. We’ll be doing it again soon.
Beck’s negative triad – or how people get (and stay) depressed.
Imagine what would happen if society fostered this process on purpose?
“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? … for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.“*
We don’t have to wait for God. We could do it now, for each other. There is plenty to go round.
Then people could just ‘do their thing’.
*King James Bible Matthew 26 – 32.
Money is a human construct, representing a promise to pay. That’s all. No matter what it’s made of – shells, gold, base metal, paper, bytes – as long as the promise is good the money is good.
Money doesn’t make the world go round. Promises do that.
And we can never run out of promises.
Today I found out that my car is beyond repair, destined for the scrapyard. Before lockdown there’d be no question of going without a car, but now? I’m not so sure.
In theory a car gives me ‘autonomy’. I can get in it at any time I like and go off anywhere I choose. In practice that autonomy is (rightly) curtailed at the moment, and likely to be for a while yet. So it seems a complete waste of all that embodied energy and raw materials to have it sat on my drive, slowly deteriorating through underuse.
It’s hard to imagine life without a car. This might just be the practice I need.
Lately, I’ve been creating and organising an archive of my blog posts, articles etc. At the risk of sounding narcissistic, it’s been interesting to see how my thinking and my expression of that thinking has developed over the last 5 or 6 years. Some things haven’t changed though, and I think you’ll enjoy this extract from 2018:
“What struck me this week was the idea explained in this video, of ‘sawubona‘, of really acknowledging each other as fellow humans when we meet, along with Seth’s discussion of how industrialism has squeezed out the opportunities for doing this in our modern lives and businesses.
Last Sunday I was wandering around the shoes in my local T K Maxx, when a gentleman asked me for help.
“Are these women’s sandals?”, he asked. Then he explained that he was buying for his father in India, who has had an operation and needs loose-fitting sandals to walk about in.
“Well, yes I’d say they are, but for what your father wants, they are probably OK.”
“I need a size 7 really, but I can’t find any in the men’s section, maybe these will have to do.”
10 minutes later, we’d found a men’s sandal in the right size style and colour, and I’d found out he was a bus driver with a degree in politics and economics. I’d learned about corruption in the Indian health service, and we’d given each other a little hug.
Sawubona. We had seen each other.
I’m fascinated by systems and processes. Not industrial ones, human ones. That run like clockwork, but with space for Sawubona.
No – they run like clockwork to create space for Sawubona.“
Just the other day, taking myself to a different Co-op for my weekly shop, and walking back the long way via several independents, I discovered that even in the time of Covid, Sawubona is possible and more precious than ever.
It’s certainly something I’d hate to lose when things get back to ‘normal’.
Thank you for taking the time to see me.
Now you have the story of your process written down, you can start to identify its components.
Read through the narrative, and pick out the names of things that get mentioned along the way. These will become ‘Props’, like the theatrical term for “an object used on stage or screen by actors during a performance.“
Props might be software e.g. “I enter the prospect’s details into the CRM System/Salesforce/Hubspot“; physical objects or their digital equivalents: “The prospect signs our non-disclosure agreement”, “I send an email to the client acknowledging receipt”. Props can also be implied: “I call the client” means there must be a telephone Prop of some kind.
One Prop in particular will stand out as being the thing that is being worked on by the process, the thing that is the point of the process. The star of the process, if you like. For example the key Prop in a process “File Annual Accounts”, is unsurprisingly, a thing called ‘Annual Accounts’.
This key Prop will help you identify the key Activities that make up the process, because it will be created, transformed and finalised through the process. Each transformation of the Prop called ‘Annual Accounts’ is a separate Activity, with an outcome that is either true or false. You have a set of Draft Accounts or you don’t, there is no halfway house. Any other Props you’ve identified will find a home inside one or more of these Activities, which may themselves be a process.
As an illustration, in order to “File Annual Accounts”, you generally have to create a set of draft accounts (an Activity you might name “Draft Annual Accounts”), check that they make sense (“Verify Draft Annual Accounts”), send them to the client for approval (“Request Draft Annual Accounts Approval”), deal with any changes (“Amend Draft Annual Accounts”), finalise them (“Finalise Annual Accounts”) and finally, send them to Companies House (“File Accounts”).
In this way, following the lifecycle of the key Prop will help you define Activities and the rough order in which they must happen.
In the next post in this series, we’ll look at finessing that order to take account of exceptions.
“The trouble with the sunshine” laughed the shop assistant, “is that it shows up how dirty the windows are.” “Tell me about it! What’s your secret for cleaning them?” I replied.
“I bring in my own e-cloths from home. I use one wet – just water- then the other to dry off. Works perfectly every time.”
That was a great tip (I tried it, it does work perfectly), but the thing that really struck me was the “I bring my own e-cloths in from home.”
People want to take pride in their work.
If you think they don’t, you might be what’s stopping them.
What’s more annoying than your bus arriving late?
Your bus arriving early.
There seems to be a trend at the moment for deliveries to arrive sooner than expected. I think this comes from an assumption that over-delivering on a promise is always good (something Royal Mail cleary don’t subscribe to). But what if I need to prepare for delivery beforehand? Arriving early messes up my schedule, makes my life more difficult.
Early delivery might be good – if you ask me first, and give me the option of sticking to the original plan.
Otherwise, it’s probably not my delight you’re seeking, but your convenience.