macro
- hosting a half-hour mindfulness/journaling session
- joining the intention setting call with the accountability group I co-run
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, 2019 - ★★
I enjoy the interplay between (and performances of) Ridley and Driver, but the rest is a bit meh.
Ocean's Eight, 2018 - ★★
I’d been waiting to see this for so long. Perhaps I built my expectations up too much. So very disappointing.
Paddington, 2014 - ★★★★
Finally got round to watching this and it was everything I expected/hoped it would be. Perfect holiday film.
David Byrne's American Utopia, 2020 - ★★★★
I had no idea what to expect from this… and I loved it! We watched it as part of our virtual weekend away to NYC during lockdown.
Weeknote 20/22
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in a weeknote before but I start each week with two regular Monday morning commitments:
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!
Invincibility
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.