Emma Cragg

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in a weeknote before but I start each week with two regular Monday morning commitments:

1. hosting a half-hour mindfulness/journaling session
2. joining the intention setting call with the accountability group I co-run

Having these two sessions to draw my focus in helps to ease me into the working week.

What else happened this week?

😵‍ My brain was AWOL on Monday after two days of pretty intense peopling and travel for the conference the week before. I spent the day on easy admin to give myself time to process and recover.

🌊 I took Tuesday off to spend the day with my wife. We went up to Howick Hall in Northumberland and walked a loop to take us out to the coast. I remembered my binoculars; we saw a stonechat, a flight of swallows, cuddy ducks and a heron fishing in the sea

🏑 After our day out I attended my hockey club’s AGM. We agreed a new committee structure, elected officers (I’ll be co-captaining the 2nd team next season), and had a discussion about a variety of options for a new home for the club in the near future.

🎯 I returned to work on Wednesday full of enthusiasm and focus. Both Wednesday and Thursday were super productive. I wrote daily to do lists on my desk pad and just did one thing after the other. For the first time in a while it felt easy.

🗃️ The working week ended with more admin; getting everything set up for the next month’s accountability group, sending an update to participants on my group coaching pilot, updating finances and catching up on emails.

🤸 I spent Wednesday evening on my first GoodGym Group Run. I chose to run to the meet, as well as run with the group to our task location. The task involved helping Ouseburn Trust volunteers to clear a flight of steps leading from Lime Street to St Ann’s. We finished the evening with a four-station circuit session.

🌻 On Saturday I helped a friend in her garden. My job was to dig up a field of dandelions to prepare the grass for reseeding. I was paid in quiche, cake and an endless flow of tea.

🍻 After my day of manual labour I met my wife from work and we did a test run for her 50th birthday celebrations. We needed to test out a local pub to make sure it was right for a large group.

⚽ I rounded off the week following the final day of the Premier League. I wasn’t invested in any particular outcome but still found it emotionally exhausting!

The weekly question in the freelancer community I belong to was: What gives you confidence?

My response surprised me…

My confidence is definitely lowest if I spend too much time alone, so getting out and talking to people is a real booster. I also look back to the point in my life where the rug was pulled from under me and when I remember how far I’ve come since then it makes me feel invincible.

Late again but I’m happy with my reasons… Last week I attended a 2-day conference (Friday/Saturday). It was my first in person experience for around 3 years and I’ve needed a faffing day and a full day off to recover. So I’m just starting my working week proper today (Wednesday).

☎️ Had a catch up call (refreshingly over the phone, not video) with a colleague about sponsorship and bursaries to support making coaching accessible to everyone who wants it not just those who can pay.

🛋️ Visited a new co-working space for a tour to see if it could work for me. I’m interested in how they’re approaching building a community rather than just renting space… but I’m not so sure about the physical environment of the office itself. I’ll need to trial it to know for sure.

💡 Met with another freelancers to share our Notion setups and swap ideas. Got some tweaks to make to my ‘Control Deck’ and weekly overview template.

💻 Hosted my usual mid-week co-working session for the accountability group.

✍️ Other work this week consisted of a lot of writing, including a longer than usual blog post about my new group coaching programme and the article edition of my fortnightly newsletter.

📚 Finished reading Spring Cannot Be Cancelled. It’s had a huge impact on me and I keep referring to it in conversation. Need to write-up those thoughts before they leave me!

🩳 Major breakthrough in mindset around wearing shorts to ‘professional’ events. I wear shorts fairly constantly for around 8 months of the year (usually between the clocks changing) but have had a mental block around wearing them to meetings and events. I realised this week that if I were a person who wears skirts it would never cross my mind not to wear one on these occasions, so why worry about rocking up in shorts?!

☕ Attended the International Association of Facilitators (England & Wales branch) conference in Birmingham; a hybrid conference with options to join in person or via Zoom. Attendance was roughly 50/50. What I really valued from the in person side was those chance conversations over coffee. It was also great to be off screen for two full days — I didn’t even take any notes! I’m still processing everything that happened and a full write-up is coming soon. And yes, I did wear shorts!

🌳 Stayed with friends while at the conference and enjoyed the down time. Also caught up with other friends locally on the Sunday for a walk in the woods before traveling home.

⚽ Played my second free hit (and final chip) in the penultimate gameweek of Fantasy Premier League. It could be worse, it could be better. And there’s still half the matches to be played. But let’s just say I should have trusted my gut!

Here’s my first attempt at getting back into the habit of posting my weeknote on a Sunday evening…

🌳 There was a Bank Holiday in the UK on Monday so we packed up our lunch and headed out into Northumberland for a walk. After a pretty meh weekend it was just what we needed.

🌟 When back to work, I made another big decision… this time to postpone the start of my group coaching pilot so I have more time to fill all the available seats.

📋 I’ve made a plan (and started acting on it!) for the next couple of weeks in terms of what I need to do to get my coaching pilot ready to run.

🍅 I did lots of virtual co-working and pomodoros to keep me focused on things I didn’t want to do and/or was struggling to start.

✍️ Had a great catch up with fellow hosts of our mindfulness community to talk about plans for the next few months including adding more sessions and organising a summer social.

🐕 On Wednesday I had another day dog-sitting Aggie which included lots of sleep and two lovely walks with playtime in the park.

🧈 On Friday morning I joined the IAF Wales meetup to demo Butter, as an alternative to Zoom.

🚮 I joined my first GoodGym community mission. We did a litter pick on the Quayside.

🌇 As the days get longer, Izzy and I have started heading out for an evening walk around the park in the last of the light around 9PM. On our first outing we spotted a couple of bats out hunting.

🌤️ It’s been a lovely weekend weather wise and I took advantage of this for a long walk on Saturday afternoon, run Sunday morning and a couple of hours working in the yard in the afternoon.

🎨 My personal goal for May is to fill a sketchbook. I’m learning to draw the birds, and other cool things, I see on my walks and need to get some practice in.

How late is too late to post a weeknote? Here’s last week’s…

🚆 I started my working week taking my first three calls sitting at my Dad’s desk, then caught the train home. I usually try to postpone work if I’m traveling but this worked out OK.

⚖️ On Tuesday I attended a webinar about the legal documents I need for my business. It was a surprisingly good refresher and I came away with a list of actions to review and refresh what I already have in place.

⏪ Reversed a decision to keep a new group coaching programme under wraps until I was ready to launch properly. It’s now out in the world and I’ll be starting the pilot in June.

✅ Caught up with my co-host for the accountability groups to review where we’re going over the next few months. Participant numbers have been increasing over the last couple of months so we had some practical stuff to review. And we agreed that neither of us have the capacity at the moment to look for new communities we could collaborate with.

🤑 Started setting up new bookkeeping software.

🎱 Watched a lot of snooker and rugby.

🍿 Started rewatching The Matrix series and spent the whole of the first film wondering whether we had Internet at home when it was originally released.

🐶 We had a third member of the household for a week while we looked after a friend’s dog. She made herself right at home, turned heads in the park, and got me stopped on the doorstep by a stranger enquiring after our new family member.

I’m a little out of the habit writing these weeknotes having been on holiday and then seemingly incapable of dedicating time to them in the week before or after. I’ll summarise the lost weeks here instead:

• Week 13 — All focus on getting everything tied up with a neat bow before going away. Overall feeling: pressure.
• Week 14 — 10 days away visiting family and friends, and exploring cities and countryside throughout England and Wales. Overall feeling: joy.
• Week 15 — Back to work trying to pick up where I left off and get used to being back inside for the majority of the day. Overall feeling: acceptance.

So what of this week?

🗨️ This week’s journaling prompts have been a selection of quotes. I’ve been writing up my responses on Fragmented Thoughts.

💻 A former colleague recently got in touch to see if I still take on freelance content work and this week we spoke to agree what that would look like.

✍️ I also got to the final stage in the onboarding process for some associate work I’m doing as an essay marker for a coaching qualification.

📋 My other main work time this week has been spent on content and marketing for a new group coaching programme I’ve put together which starts next month.

💭 And I’ve been doing some thinking about how all the pieces of my offer fit together and where there might be gaps to fill.

🌳 I’ve been making some tweaks to my daily routines, all of which so far I’ve felt the benefit of: drinking more water, creating more regular opportunities for fresh air and exercise and reducing time spent on email and social media.

🚆 Got the train home to visit my parents for the weekend. It was busy yet everyone was in good humour. A lot of groups heading to Wembley for the boxing.

🌹 Dad and I went back to Welford Road for the first time in about 20 years (we used to have season tickets there for Leicester Tigers when I was a teenager). We watched our first live Red Roses match. England only really got up to speed in the second half, scoring 9 of their 11 tries at the end opposite to where we were sitting. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable day out in the sunshine and good to see them play live.

📋 We’re running an open week for our accountability group in the last week of March, so I spent some time setting up and planning sessions for that. We’ve doubled the number of participants, and added a couple of bonus sessions, so it requires a little more logistical effort than usual.

❓ I attended a Q&A about business insurance. Sounds dull but was actually super helpful (and not at all dry) thanks to the enthusiasm of the speaker.

👣 I also attended an onboarding session for an associate role I’m taking on through Barefoot Coaching. It was both helpful to walk through the various processes and good to meet my fellow associates.

💬 On Thursday evening, I ran my first Sobremesa Session where we explored the topic of compassion. Overall I was pleased with how it went and got some great feedback. There are a couple of tweaks to make for next time but nothing major.

📢 This week’s newsletter was about community. It clearly struck a chord as a few people immediately shared it with their networks. That was a nice reminder that if you write something that resonates other people will shout about it for you.

📖 During this week’s daily mindfulness sessions our prompts have all been about habits. Instead of journaling in response to these, I’ve chosen to start building a habit of 30 minutes non-fiction reading. It helped me to finally start reading Spring Cannot be Cancelled.

🍾 On Friday night we had our first takeaway in a while. And for no reason other than we wanted to, we shared a bottle of champagne with our fish and chip supper.

🏑 Saturday saw the last hockey match of the season. We made hard work of it during the first half which ended 1-1. Thankfully we found our stride for the second half and scored a further three goals with no reply; two of which are contenders for goal of the season.

⚽ To take advantage of the last of the sunshine before the weather turns we got the Metro up to near the airport to watch Newcastle United Women play Bradford City. Not the finest defensive performance from either team, it was 1-1 at half time. A penalty resulting from a foul by the last defender (who also received a red card) sealed the win for Newcastle, though they really should have had more after a couple of goal-line scrambles.

⚡ I spent a good chunk of my working time this week preparing for an event series I’m trialling. The first session is next week and I’m just ironing out the details ahead of that.

✉️ I delayed sending my newsletter and decided to switch to a new schedule of two emails per month. As work is getting busier I’ve noticed the quality diminishing as I try to keep up with the weekly schedule.

💰 Ahead of switching the structure of my business from a limited company to sole trader I’ve done a cashflow forecast and a load more financial admin.

📢 I’ve made the effort to continue consistent work on marketing. This has started with some thinking around what I’m trying to achieve and the different strategies that will get me there in a way that feels natural to me.

🔁 For a while I’ve been throwing ideas around with a colleague about how we can make our accountability groups a sustainable part of our businesses. This week I’ve been exploring memberships as a way of doing this.

✍️ Another decision, related to my goal of building a more consistent (non-work-related) writing habit is to restart the 100 days to offload challenge. I’ll post to my write.as blog a couple of time a week from the beginning of April.

🏑 Two big wins (and bonus clean sheets) for my hockey team this week. Mid-week we won 2-0 against a team who are right on our tail in the league. Then on Saturday we beat the team at the bottom of the table 5-0. The points and improved goal difference helped us leapfrog the team above us.

☀️ It’s really starting to feel like Spring. We’ve had sunshine all week, the daffs are blooming and I wore shorts all week (much to the consternation of some of my fellow freelance friends)!

🏰 I started reading Titus Alone and tried to explain the bonkers world of Gormenghast to some friends.

🗡️ And I binged season 3 of Killing Eve after realising I hadn’t seen it yet. I gave up after S2 which was more than a little ridiculous. Thankfully S3 gets back to basics.