Insights

It’s been a week to remember, and not in a good way. At the end of January I was celebrating the launch of my new book People Glue with my sprightly mother, 84, who still lives independently. People Glue is about how we can create 'sticky' organisations by giving people more freedom so they want to stay and they do their best work. I dedicated to my mother and my late father, the photo below was taken just after Mum had seen the dedication for the first time.

Have you ever worked on a slow-burn project that took 2 years (or more) to come to fruition? I’m fast approaching one of those ‘fruition’ moments. Yet it feels like yesterday that I was telling you about my seed of an idea.... My second business book People Glue: hold on to your best people by setting them free launches on Monday 26th January (e-book) and Tuesday 27th January (paperback & hardback). I’d love your help to create momentum around the launch and celebrate with me.

How far ahead do you typically think ? ‘Festive creep’ is a thing apparently, with the festive decorations, shopfronts and marketing campaigns officially starting earlier than ever before. (I ate my first mince pie on the last day of November – have I fallen prey too?). This seems to me to be another indication of how impatient and hurried we have become, always in a rush for the next arrival, to start the next new initiative at work or hit the next deadline, and in parallel our attention has become chopped up into ever-smaller increments in our rush to acquire, achieve and advance. I’m pondering how we can counterbalance our short-term, hyper-fast focus with a slowing down to help us take more in, look further ahead and expand our thinking. I’m as guilty of myopic busyness as anyone. My second business book People Glue launches on 26/27 January (quick plug: pre-order your paperback/hardback here or you can snap up the e-book for just 99p on the 26th January, add a reminder to your calendar here ) and we’re shortly heading off on a long-haul family adventure over the festive period. So I’m currently running several ‘to do’ lists concurrently, all intended very ambitiously to ‘get everything done’ by the time school’s out. I can’t see past the forest of work tasks, home admin, festive gift-buying and packing reminders that clog my view. With our departure date looming, I need to step back and look further ahead, or as the French say, ‘reculer pour mieux avancer’. My exasperated husband put it more bluntly, ‘yes we need to unblock the kitchen drain for the housesitters but a new rug for the sitting-room is NOT a priority!’ When I was researching for People Glue , I spoke to 25 or so CEOs, COOs and CPOs , many of whom talked about looking at their business through 2 lenses: one eye on daily operations and short-term results, the other on longer-term ‘moonshots’ that anticipated potential future developments and built organisational capability for tomorrow. Each lens brought insights and a counterbalancing view to the other. Individuals generally want the same in their lives too; to manage, on the one hand, the day-to-day load (at work and home) as efficiently and productively as possible whilst planning their next pay rise, promotion, job move, house refurbishment, holiday or family addition. They’re also zooming out to think about what matters most to them today and how this might evolve in the future. Even those who take a fairly spontaneous approach to their career opportunities hold firm to a set of longer-term beliefs and values that form a career compass guiding their decisions - listen to my podcast conversation with tech CEO Soulaima Gourani to hear how she does this brilliantly. I was fascinated to read at the weekend about the creation of a Clock of the Long Now (FT £, or here ), designed to measure the passing of 10,000 years. Located deep in a remote Texan mountain, it will confound our expectations of a clock by ticking once a year, chiming once a century and trumpeting a cuckoo once a millenium. All without winding and parts replacements. The same day, I listened to author and computer science professor Cal Newport talk about the lost art of long thinking on his podcast. He defines long thinking as ‘the persistent intentional application of your brain when you’re trying to create something new’ and points out how sustained attention is critical for long thinking. But thanks to smartphones, instant gratification and short-form ultra-digestible entertainment, we’ve lost the habit of thinking for ourselves and spend less time reading longer texts, reflecting, and writing as form of thinking. The renowned psychologist Daniel Kahneman shed light on our 2 speeds of thinking in his remarkable book Thinking Fast and Slow . We slip comfortably into fast thinking thanks to our cognitive biases and shortcuts, entrenched assumptions and easily-recalled (but incomplete or unreliable) data. It’s more effortful to engage in slow thinking – like writing with your non-dominant hand - because the latter requires sustained attention, the search for alternative perspectives and an exploration of the unfamiliar. I have a thirst for books, reading, bookshops and libraries that I’m belatedly learning is a powerful antidote to the short-term busyness and task accomplishment that I’ve become so used (addicted?) to. I’m curious to know what value business leaders place on reading, and learning, generally in their organisations, and asked a friend who’s running a 7,000 employee consulting business whether she thought corporate libraries were worth investing in. Her answer was revealing: her initial reaction was ‘not a priority’ but she swiftly followed that up with ‘but I would love to encourage people to switch off from the immediacy of work and find more time in their day/week to read/learn/reflect, engage in curiosity and expand their thinking horizons. I absolutely want to make this part of the way we work here’. If this strikes a chord, if you’ve established a corporate library or another mechanism e.g. a book club, reading circles etc, to grow people’s reading and thinking habits at work, then please do get in touch , and I’ll share my thoughts on this too. Here's how I’m trying to adjust the balance of my thinking time and extend my thinking horizons: 1. 10 minutes a day ‘still time’ – sitting quietly, doing nothing, to get used to the discomfort of switching to a slower pace. My brain twitches like mad for most of it but my mental hamster wheel does start to ease into a slower, more contemplative state. 2. Prioritising ‘reading windows’ for 20-30 minutes a day over other things I could do in that time . Phone down, jobs ignored, interruptions discouraged. I turn to my subscriptions - the FT, The Economist, Harvard Business Review and Sloan MIT Review – and have a browse. In the evenings I turn to fiction, often a Korean novel (translated) of late. 3. When drafting or planning, I’m reverting to ink pen and paper . I’m a fast touch-typist and writing out my thoughts by hand is more effortful, forcing me to think more carefully. My phone goes in Focus mode to silence notifications, and out of sight. What works for you? Or what thinking habit do you want to introduce? I’d love to hear what you’re reading at the moment or what you’re stacking up to read over the festive period and I’ll include a little book list in my New Year’s email. In the meantime, embrace the festivities your way and if that means ditching your to-do list in favour of some quality thinking, reading and reflecting time (mince pie or Celebration choc in hand), then go for it. Let’s make ‘thinking creep’ a thing instead.

How do you react when the going gets tough? We’ve been talking a lot about resilience at home. It’s a much-thrown-about concept I know, but I’m genuinely curious about how to really be resilient when the path you’re on feels anything but easy. Between anxiety-inducing news headlines, a tough job hunt for my stepson, my daughter finding school challenging, and clients navigating big transitions, 2025 has felt bumpy. The world of work is turbulent, with layoffs happening in multiple industries and budget cuts in others. GenAI adoption is shrinking early-career jobs, while over-55s are anxious about the future. Leaders and managers are grappling with the diverse needs of multigenerational, hybrid teams. I’ve been reflecting on how we ride out these bumps without feeling battered. Resilience isn’t something we magically have or lack - it grows as we show up consistently to adversity. Here are 3 resilience-building ideas. First, try reframing things. Reframing doesn’t fix a tough situation overnight, but it brings the energy to keep going. I love how my recent podcast guest, Soulaima Gourani, a globally recognized tech founder and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, handles setbacks: ‘I don't look at my problems as problems, I look at them as projects. I’m just manipulating myself to think of life as a human experience. Even setbacks are an incredible opportunity to grow. I have a setback probably daily; I get used to it! When I call my girlfriends and we have a good laugh, I often share what went wrong that day. It just takes the spiciness out of it.’ You can hear more about being fearless in life and work in our conversation here . Second, focus on what we can influence. Stephen Covey’s framework in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People describes a large ‘circle of concern’ within which sits a smaller ‘circle of influence’ (picture a donut). We waste energy worrying about things we can’t control; we build our resilience by putting our time and energy into those challenges which we do have some influence over. At work, that may mean: • Reflecting on what gives your work meaning. I discussed this with Professor Ying Zhou here . • Talking to your boss about reshaping your role, temporarily or long-term. My chat with Beth Stallwood about shaping better working lives may help. • Spotting new opportunities as stepping stones to a better work experience. • Building your skills to create more options for the future. At home, it’s about: • Accessing a coach or specialist advice if needed. • Focusing on eating, sleeping, and exercising consistently. • Finding pockets of time - however small - for things that recharge you. For me, that’s having a great book at hand to help me switch off, learning Korean for a few minutes a day, a coffee or a call with a friend, and the occasional spa treatment. Third, focus on the team. Resilience resides within teams . We can’t change everything alone, so talk about challenges and lean on your team (however you define ‘team’ at work and at home) for support. Workplace team resilience doesn’t demand a big ambitious programme, expensive external support or a flashy new employee benefit. Some powerful, low-cost habits make all the difference: • Having timely, quality conversations. • Setting up check-ins, building social bonds. • Making it easy for people to make reasonable requests. • Giving people chances to develop resilience through experience. Skilled managers are key - emotionally intelligent, with coaching and facilitation expertise. Find more ideas in my LinkedIn post or take a look at my outline for a new manager development programme here and please do get in touch if you want to chat about this, I’d welcome your input. And at home? Try: • Adjusting how you share the daily load. • Carving out lighthearted family time with no talk of challenges. • Sharing both your wins and stumbles of the week. • Asking, ‘how are you doing today on a scale of 1–10?’ (where 1 is ‘finding today very hard’ and 10 is ‘feeling at my brightest’). What helps you and your team at work or home? If things have been feeling bumpy for you too, I hope you can find your way onto a smoother path soon and please get in touch if I can listen or help.

Managers who make us stay (and those who don’t)

Ten practical ways to help you and your team to keep your energy levels up month in, month out.

How often do you get the luxury of extended, undisturbed time? Is there a quiet space or magical place you retreat to? I’m writing this in a silent house, up early before the rest of the family. All I can hear is the scratching of my ink pen on the paper and the cooing and chirruping of garden birds outside my window. No voices, machines, traffic, notifications or interruptions. I can hear myself think, there’s no-one calling for my attention and the jobs can wait. But at any minute, this brief lull will crumble. It's hard to get extended, undisturbed time. Many of us are spending less time in our home offices now more organisations have encouraged – or mandated – more in-office working. The majority of people still work a structured hybrid patterns, but likely 1-2 days per week at most at home. Not that home-working is typically quieter – diaries are still largely stuff with calls, messaging channels ping continously and the home distractions of pets demanding attention, chatty home-working partners, texts from teenagers at school or – my pet peeve – couriers knocking on the door, dropping the parcel outside and driving straight off while I’m halfway down the stairs thinking I’m needed. Our focus time is bounded by each interruption or intrusion into our attention. Some people I know say they need background noise to help them concentrate. At least 2 CEO’s I’ve spoken to prefer doing calls and emails in cafés and their office’s buzzy atrium where the constant hum of voices and hissing and thumping of coffee macines provide a cloack of anonymity around even sensitive conversations. Whatever your preference environment-wise, it turns out that noisy ones are actually damaging to our health; anything above the maximum recommended noise level of 53 decibels is described as a ‘ silent killer ’. A quiet library falls under this, your average office above it. Quiet time isn’t just about the decibel level, it’s also about freedom from distraction and interruptions. As I was telling over 200 sixth-form students at an Enterprise and Innovation conference a week ago, our brains prefer to focus on one task at a time and maintain an extended attention set – to get into ‘flow’, in other words. In terms of cognitive functioning, that’s when we are at peak performance. Every time our attention is tugged away from the task at hand, research has shown that it takes us over 2 seconds to reorient back to the task at hand. Known as the toggling tax, this happens on average up to 1,200 times per day, costing us 4 hours a week or 5 full weeks per year of lost attention, wasted time and reduced productivity. Ouch. So there’s a strong case for designing work environments that allow people to concentrate in quiet spaces and office design today is increasingly factoring this in. Co-working hubs and corporate offices now offer quiet zones where calls and conversations are not permitted; individual work spaces that look like padded, high-wall cubicles block out the rustling or key board tapping of workers either side; and individual sound-proofed call booths that keep noise leakage to a minimum. I’ve learnt the hard way to be more selfish with my quiet time when I’m writing, silencing notifications on my phone, putting noise cancelling headphones on and shutting the door to our companionable, aka needy, cat (and my companionable but not needy husband). I’ve been reminded this week of the power of quiet time and a restorative environment: I was fortunate to spend 2 nights at the UK’s only privately-owned national nature reserve in a luxury eco-cabin (hot shower and log burner included) overlooking 3,300 acres of marshland, big skies and an incredible array of wildlife. Having discovered it last year, I’d booked myself in again as a reward for getting to the ¾ milestone in writing People Glue and an incentive to crack on with the last 12,500 words as the manuscript deadline looms. In the magical peace and quiet, I wrote close to 3,000 words there – my average weekly output in just over a day – in long, undisturbed stretches punctuated only by my daily run, short walks to clear my head and the arrival of delicious dinners brought to my door. The biggest distraction was the wildlife outside the cabin’s huge glass windows: a mesmerisingly beautiful, shadowy-eyed short-eared owl did its utmost to persuade me to look up from my writing with its swooping, gliding and head-swivelling display. Hares bounded around playfully as buzzards, marsh- and hen-harriers patrolled hungrily overhead. A tiny wren skipped across my patio, tapping its beak on the glass doors, tail cocked up jauntily. No school runs, no pets to feed, no work calls, no washing macines to load, not unattended chores in sight nagging me reproachfully - I am very grateful to my wonderful husband for holding the fort at home so I could steal away. Perhaps you would prefer the cosmopolitan buzz of a city or a sunlounger beside a gleaming hotel pool - I wouldn’t say no to either at a different time. But soaking up this solitude, my time felt unbounded and that felt the biggest luxury of all. It has reminded me of the importance of consciously planned quiet time, ideally somewhere magical, for our wellbeing, our creativity and the quality of our thinking. I’m just wondering how soon I can book a return visit….

When a tech-savvy grandmother outpaces her teenage granddaughter in adopting AI, it's a reminder that the freedom to grow knows no age limits.

Got a goal in mind for 2025? These 4 questions could help you turn it into reality.

Growing successfully as a business means first letting go of old ways of operating; only then can people fully embrace the new.

Teams are what make or break business performance. With a relatively small investment in each team, your retention rates, employee engagement scores, and productivity measures will go up.

How to encourage this in a way that works for your business. There is a real and urgent need to address the creeping norm of employees working all hours, being contactable and available all the time. But Labour’s recent abandoning of a legal ‘right to disconnect’ in favour of a voluntary code of practice is probably the right move, in my humble opinion. Here are 5 reasons why, 5 ways to make switching off a win/win for you and your organisation, and 5 positive actions to put into practice now. Why legislation is too blunt a tool: Heavy-handed legislation will probably antagonise businesses, not secure their support. There's more to do first to spotlight organisations that are managing the boundaries well between working & non-working time well and proving the business benefits. It’s too early to say confidently how well similar legislation has worked abroad. Australia only adopted this last month; the longer-standing fine-based approach in France and Portugal isn't proven as an effective deterrent. Human-centred organisations are probably already paying attention to this, being creative about work boundaries and using their approach to enhance their employer brand. They'll be the ones who proactively adopt the code of practice and make it genuinely part of ‘the way we work here’ - and they'll win at attracting and retaining talented people longer-term as a result. ‘But clients will go elsewhere’. This is the defence I often hear in rejection of proposals like the right to disconnect. No, client won't IF you engage them in the change and show them that it means they get to access your sharpest minds working at their best,. When organisations see their early-adopter competitors living the code and still winning & keeping desirable clients - and nabbing theirs - they’ll swiftly follow suit. Let’s be clear: some people will continue to say yes to high pay/exciting work in return for ‘you’ll work whenever when we need you ‘. But it’ll be a transactional relationship lasting for as long as it benefits the individual (or employer) and no longer. Easy come, easy go. If that’s your philosophy as an employer: own it and be transparent. Don’t sign the code and pay it lip service. If yours IS an organisation that wants to do better at encouraging employees to switch off, try: 1. Using Labour’s shift to open up conversations at work about pressures to communicate or be available after hours. 2. Adding ‘we support the right to disconnect’ in your recruitment material and having examples to share with candidates during interviews. 3. Supporting selected managers and their teams to trial different experiments around switching off. 4. Asking people ‘how can we help you do to your best work within your normal working hours?’. ‘What gets in the way of this?’. 5. Setting up an industry-wide collaboration to trial different ways of achieving the same outcome. Asynchronous and flexible working are here to stay and bring many benefits to individuals and their employers. But they can make it a challenge to co-ordinate and communicate within teams and across time zones. Here's what you can do personally to uphold the right to switch off and respect other people's non-working time: Add an email footer like: 'I'm sending this now because it suits me but I'm not expecting a response outside of normal working hours'. Work offline if you're working late evenings or weekends, so you're not visible on Teams/whatever channels you use, and schedule your emails to send the next day to avoid the ripple effect of people responding immediately. If people on your team have repeatedly worked late or sacrificed home lives to help reach a deadline, then give them some time back straight afterwards. It's simple and effective. If you're a manager, find out people's preferences around being contacted - or not - during out of hours or when on leave. Everyone's different, so make it your job to know. See annual leave as an opportunity for a colleague to step up and have some stretch experience by covering for you, with support beforehand. Then switch off properly and don't muddy the water by dipping in and out unasked. Listen to my podcast conversation with Ben Higgins, Global CHRO of Wholesale Banking at Societe Generale, about how he does this. These examples are about applying #timeintelligence. If you want to know more about my #timeintelligence sessions for leaders, teams and individuals, get in touch . And if you're making good progress in your organisation on switching off - or at least trialling a few changes - then I'd love to hear more. During normal working hours, of course.

Managing the school holiday juggle and announcing book 2!

What does it cost us to be always rushing ahead? What are we missing by not pausing to look back?

When sticking stops. A barn owl perched observantly on a post in front of me, a heron gliding by like a feathered Concorde with its wings tucked in. Just two of the birds I’ve spotted today whilst working at UK’s only family-owned and managed National Nature Reserve, at Elmley in Kent. I’m not working in the sense of checking on wildlife and mending fences, I’m working in the sense of enjoying an indulgent writing retreat in glorious isolation, tucked away in a definitely-not-roughing-it wooden cabin complete with outdoor tub overlooking meadows and marshes (more pics here ). This retreat is both a long-anticipated birthday gift from my family and the official starting point for writing my second business book. It’s been brewing in my head for months and is now begging loudly to be given some proper love and attention. So here I am, off-grid in every sense with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do for 24 hours than plan and write. Write what? I hear you ask…

What does time off mean to you? How well do you 'not work'?

I waved a Minion off to school yesterday for World Book Day. At least my 12 year old daughter now sorts out her own WBD outfit thank goodness, and there’s now another 364 days before WBD rolls around again. But we’re not done for this week because it's International Women’s Day today! In recognition of this global celebration of women’s contribution to work and society, every day this week I’ve been sharing a statistic on Linked In that describes how women are impacted by our 'time culture' at work. If ‘time culture’ is a new expression to you a) you obviously haven’t read my award-winning business book The Future of Time yet and b) it means our attitudes, behaviours and expectations around the way we spend our time at work. What gets valued and rewarded, what doesn’t. What we spend much of our time on, what we don’t spend so much time on (but ought to). Because surprise, surprise, women are disadvantaged by our ‘time culture’ in several ways. Here are my top five.

Making change stick. Recently, I’ve been tuning in regularly to the 'Just One Thing' podcast by Dr. Michael Mosley. In each 15-minute episode, Michael delves into a single, manageable change that can enhance our health and extend our lifespan. Thanks to him, I’m keeping up my green tea ritual (that was a quick win), incorporating daily planks into my exercise routine (right after my morning run - oof) and reheating leftover carbs. I’m a bit of a podcast butterfly and I’m wondering why this podcast has stuck firmly now as a favourite. Besides Dr. Mosley's warm and reassuring tone, I think it boils down to 3 things. Firstly, focusing on just one thing feels refreshingly attainable. Let's face it, we're bombarded with complex self-improvement strategies daily. Who wants a whole industry of new ‘to do’s to implement, remember and track? Secondly, the changes are entirely within my control. I don't need anyone's permission to start planking in my bedroom, even if it does provide my husband with daily amusement. I can make these changes tomorrow, better still, today. Thirdly, the advice is specific and the outcomes are clear. I know precisely what to do and whether it’s working. Whether it's keeping my blood pressure in check or reducing blood sugar spikes, the benefits are measurable. Now, shifting gears to my work life, I find parallels between Dr. Moseley's approach and my Time-Intelligent Teams workshops. These workshops aim to enhance teams' productivity and enjoyment at work – to help people to invest their time more effectively. We focus on one collective and one individual change that are within the team's control. Through reflection, brainstorming, and laughter, teams identify actionable steps to work smarter, not harder. The feedback from these workshops has been resoundingly positive with managers reporting improved communication, higher levels of commitment to the change and more cohesive teamwork. Of course the power of ‘just one thing’ is that once you’ve mastered that one change and it has proven it’s value, it simply becomes part of how you do things. Which leaves you free to cast around for the next ‘just one thing’ that could also have a transformative effect. And another after that. That’s why, to my amazement, wall squats have joined my daily exercise routine and I’m evangelising about the benefits of cooked tomatoes. I just need to find Michael’s episode on why sticky toffee pudding will reverse the ageing process…..

How are those 2024 goals looking? If you’re the type of person who loves setting New Year resolutions and making aspirational plans for the coming 12 months, but then feels downcast a few weeks or months later when all those intentions look over-ambitious or have fallen by the wayside, then this blog post will cheer you up, I guarantee. Because I’ve discovered a better way to start the year: by recognising that we’re already living our future today. Let me unpack that. People today say they are time poor and the stats shed light on why: work intensity has increased steadily over the past 20 years, leisure time has fallen - plus we don’t tend to use it wisely - and we spend more of our time parenting our children than previous generations, or caring for elderly dependents. When we’re time poor, we tend to feel under pressure to get things done, stay on top of things and keep all those plates spinning as efficiently as possible. We’re always thinking about what’s coming up next and the future that we’re working towards. (My vision of the future? Older me is effortlessly churning out bestseller books from an idyllic coastal eco-cottage, in between bouts of sea-swimming and long clifftop yomps. What’s yours?). The problem is, that future is always slightly out of grasp. So we keep on striving to get there. Hand-in-hand with tomorrow-chasing is beating ourselves up about the big things what we haven’t achieved yet or on a smaller scale, tasks we haven’t ticked off our daily or weekly to-do lists. I had a great 2023 – busy, healthy, enjoyable – but reading back over my mid-year plan was a frustrating litany of ‘not done’, ‘not done’, ‘not done’, from my updating my website to launching my new Time-Intelligence online diagnostic for teams and organisations. Hal Hershfield, Professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management and author of Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today came on my podcast The Business of Being Brilliant in September. He advises ‘ not to always live life for tomorrow’ and to ‘ have some self compassion and self forgiveness. It's really easy to beat ourselves up because we're falling short of the things that we said we wanted to do. And that's not really fair to our present selves’. What we don’t typically pay so much attention to – or even notice at all – are all the things we’re already doing today that are to be celebrated or that quite simply, we find enjoyable or rewarding. As Hal says ‘ I think we do a disservice to our future selves by telling ourselves that we're working for them, but in reality we're missing the present and then what sort of life does that add up to?’ I notice the same unhelpful tendency in organisations, where we’re equally future-obsessed. As soon as one project is over, the next one begins. We sprint from one deadline to the next without pausing for breath or taking time to reflect, appreciate, learn or reconsider. It’s a common refrain I hear people say in my Time-Intelligent Teams workshops . It’s a chronic case of organisational impatience, and it’s not a recipe for long-term, sustainable high performance. So what’s the antidote? It’s to ask ourselves ‘are we there already?’ This question is reminiscent of the dreaded ‘are we there yet?’ that every child asks, usually 10 minutes after leaving home (yep, you did it too) and that makes every driver want to scream. But ‘are we there already?’ is different. It invites us to reflect on what we’re doing today and the outcomes we’re bringing about. It helps us to see afresh the seams of richness layered through our work or home lives that we’ve been neglecting to notice and whose absence we’d sorely regret. By asking ‘are we there already?’ or ‘am I there already?’, we can look differently at what we spend our time on today and appreciate those things we do that are working well for us right here, right now. In other words, the ways in which we’re already living our future today. In my #timeintelligence workshops, I help teams identify all the positive aspects of the way they work that is enabling them to deliver on their goals, often under intense time pressure and resource constraints. In parallel with celebrating these strengths and successes, we look for changes within their control that can help them overcome the challenges or frustration and make best use of their time at work. So instead of setting some traditional resolutions, why not try setting some ‘living my future today’ resolutions? By listing a few things that you already do and would like to continue doing/do more often because they bring you joy, respite, connection, growth, inspiration, fulfilment, contentment or some other benefit. Here are some of my ‘living my future today’ resolutions: 1. Doing a short writing sprint every day to make sense of some half-formed musings, explore the seed of an idea or untangle a mental confusion. The world makes a bit more sense after each sprint. 2. Playing the piano every day that I’m at home, because I find it a magical antidote to a racing mind and it brings back treasured memories of jamming on the piano with my father. 3. Keeping up my daily running streak (today was day #1,151) because I love it and I want to stay mobile and independent until I’m headed for the next world. 4. Sticking with my ‘Review, Celebrate, Plan’ habit where at the end of each week, I review how the week has gone, celebrate things I feel proud of and plan for the week ahead. Cup of tea and large slice of cake in hand. 5. Saying yes to coffees and phone calls with friends even when work and life feel too busy and I’m tempted to say ‘not this week’. I never regret making the time. Why not ask the same question to colleagues in your team? Your close friends or family? It might spark a new kind of conversation. And you might well discover that your future has already arrived.

Pause the hamster wheel and set a more thoughtful course for 2024.

Find out how to overcome resourcing constraints, meeting overload and employee burnout in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.

I'm betting it's a question that you might not have asked people for a while. I'm about to persuade you that you should.

Many of us feel like we’re madly spinning plates. So how can we free up our time without metaphorically sweeping up a load of smashed china?

What do you yearn for? For me, it's a slower, simpler life with less 'stuff'.

It’s putting the effort in every day, come rain or shine, that moves us forward.

Reflections on writing and launching my business book over the past 2 years.

Indolent time-wasters? Think again. I explain how we can learn from sloths to maximise our energy at work.

Lessons I've learned the hard way about managing time. As the author of a business book about time management, people often expect me to have nailed time management perfectly, to never turn up late and to get everything done whilst still having time to spare. Let me hold onto that appealing depiction for just a minute or two … because it is definitely not my reality. I described myself recently on a webinar as ‘a recovering time addict’ because most of my adult life I feel like I’ve been desperately chasing time, needing more of it, obsessing over it. Looking back, I’ve been as guilty as anyone at trying to fit too much into my waking hours, being overambitious about how long things take to do and complaining about never having enough time. When our daughter was tiny, I’d start cleaning the house at 9pm at night because I never managed to fit it in earlier (yes I know, I should have just accepted the mess). I should have seen the warning signs earlier on (we’ll come back to those pesky ‘should’s shortly). In the 1990’s, when I was starting my career, Belbin team roles were all the rage. You answered a questionnaire and were told whether you were a ‘plant’ (fun-sounding creative type), ‘shaper’ (bossy-sounding leader) or another one of the 9 roles. Me? I was the very unexciting-sounding ‘completer finisher’. Combined with being a J in Myers-Briggs, that means I find it really hard to stop work and play unless I’ve got to the bottom of my to-do list. Which, as we all know, never, ever happens. So what led me stumbling down the path towards enlightenment? Over the past 25+ years, a great deal of research and learning around human behaviour, group dynamics, work cultures and people’s experiences of work, and more recently the concept of time, our perceptions of time, the neuroscience of how we think about time and the science of how habits form, stick and fail. Through my 1:1 and group coaching, team workshops and consulting work, I now help individuals, teams and organisations to develop ‘ time intelligence’ or TQ , by which I mean: our ability to notice how we’re spending our time and to consciously invest our time in more rewarding ways, so that we reap a better ROI for ourselves, our teams, our businesses and our families. You can read more about that in my January newsletter here . My own relationship with time is a source of constant fascination to me and very much ‘work in progress’. in this blog, I thought I’d share a few of the things I’ve learnt along the way and that work for me; they might not work for you, but feel free to borrow and adapt them to suit you. I look at time management in 3 ‘buckets’: goals, mindset and systems, and I work on all of these in parallel. Goals : these are the big questions I ask myself from time to time, about ‘what kind of person do I want to be?’ and ‘what does a life well-lived mean to me?’ So much of the way we spend our time is wrapped up in our identity, our values and what matters most to us in life. That’s one reason why it can feel so hard to change our daily habits – it’s not simply about flossing our teeth every night or networking better, it’s about something much, much more significant to us. Mindset : I try and take an honest look at some of the self-talk going on inside my head. In The Chimp Paradox Steve Peters calls it ‘chimp chatter’, whilst in Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway Susan Jeffers calls it ‘the Chatterbox’. I think of it as my inner radio, which I can choose when to tune into and when to switch off. Good questions to help you explore your self-talk are ‘what outdated beliefs am I holding onto?’ and ‘what limiting ways of thinking are keeping me stuck in unhelpful habits?’ And ditch those 'should's! Jim Detert, author of Choosing Courage and a recent guest on my podcast, describes this mindset work as cognitive behavioural thinking here (audio starts at 40m 55s). Systems : these are the tools, reminders and nudges that we put in place to help us make better choices day in, day out around how we spend our time. 3 great books I recommend on creating effective systems and habits are The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Atomic Habit s by James Clear, and How to Change by Katy Milkman. Here are 5 ingredients of my own system: 1. I think about and plan my time A LOT. At the end of every week I review how I’ve spent my time and what I gained (in the fullest sense) from it and I write down what I want to spend my time in the coming week. At the end of each day, I list the few things I most want to get done the next day, at work and at home. Once a quarter I have a ‘standback’ session where I look more critically at how things are going, what I’m happy with, what’s bugging me. And during holiday time, when I’ve detached from work, I get a relaxed perspective on the same questions. 2. I make my time as visible as possible. So much of what we spend our time on goes unrecorded and unacknowledged. Of course it’s not possible to capture everything but I try and get a clear view of the things that matter most to me. I have a hand-written, 6-weeks-on-a-double-page view of what’s coming up at work and at home; I have shared calendars with family members; I don’t just put tasks in, I put social time, family time, reading time and ‘me’ time in. 3. I don’t rely on my imperfect memory. I offload as much as I can to ‘external memory’ sources, whether that’s my calendar or a list (or telling my daughter who has an incredible memory!). Importantly my list isn’t a ‘to do’ list, it’s a memory list and from that, I decide what things I want to move to my daily and weekly ‘to do’ lists. I set frequent reminders; I use countdown alarms to help me finish up tasks on time; and I write short notes after important conversations. 4. I ask myself ‘what do I most want to spend my time on right now?’ This simple question helps me avoid motoring relentlessly from one task to the next while the hours fly by. If necessary, I walk away to another room or viewpoint to break my focus and then answer the question. And whatever my week has been like, Sunday afternoons are sacred – no chores, no work, no cooking, just idle time and leisure time. 5. I pack away – or squirrel myself away from – distractions. Putting my phone in a bag or a drawer does help me stop reaching for it mindlessly; moving my home office upstairs and away from the kitchen helped minimise family interruptions and mute the siren call of the larder cupboard. Whilst working I switch off all programmes and apps except the ones I need to use for the task at hand, and I’ve found a couple of quiet, welcoming places in Kent and London where I go and do a day or half day of some ‘deep work’ from time to time. No, my system isn’t perfect, yes it falls over sometimes (as do I). But each day I start again, and I think it’s the patience that I’m cultivating that is the most rewarding outcome in itself. It’s a welcome antidote to our hunger for instant gratification, and in my view a vastly undervalued superpower in our speed-obsessed world of work. I don’t want to hurtle through life then look back and wonder why I spent so much of my time in a headlong rush, I want to enjoy life more as I go and stop to enjoy the views … whilst accepting happily the things I’ve left undone. **** If you're stuck on a spinning hamster wheel and want to spend your time differently, get in touch and let's chat on a free 30 minute call.

Why do we find it hard to get round to doing certain tasks or deadlines? Here are six reflections, drawn from neuroscience, behavioural science and motivation theory, about our tendency to avoid getting on with the job and some tips to help us knuckle down more successfully.

All change feels hard, particularly big, complex, ambitious goals. But as individuals, we have more power than we might think.

How often do we bring 'the other me' to work? Last week I left my home office in our quiet Kent village and stepped into a different world, spending 2 days at the celebrated Cheltenham Literature Festival. I spoke on a panel about the future of work at a breakfast event alongside Johanna Thomas Corr, incoming Literary Editor of The Sunday Times, and Lizzie Penny, joint CEO of Hoxby and co-author of Workstyle. Between events I got to hang out in the Writers’ Tent - picture squishy leather sofas, free food and drink and lively book chatter - with far more famous and celebrated writers than me. I loved it all: speaking, seeing my book in the Waterstones book tent, signing copies, listening to other talks and chatting to attendees. A friend commented amusingly to me afterwards about my ‘rockstar’ life, and indeed it did feel a little like being a rockstar for 48 hours, minus the entourage and air guitar. It was exciting and invigorating to let this other 'me' out. The following day normal life resumed, complete with the school run and hanging out the washing. As I pegged up the seemingly endless line of socks, I pondered: how much time do we invest in the other ‘me’s? How often do we get to explore different sides to our personalities, practice different skills, try out new experiences, wear a different image to our usual one, and meet different people in new settings? How much are we limited by our ‘usual’ routine, environment and yes, our ingrained expectations of ourself? It also made me question how much of ‘the other me’ we share with others at work. I recall an interview at the start of my consulting career when I was in my 20’s in which I talked about having a ‘professional’ self and a ‘personal’ self and how I presented only certain aspects of my persona to colleagues and clients at work. I was never sure if that was an advantgeous or disadvantageous thing to confess to! But for some years I certainly hid some aspects of my personality and interests in order to fit into the perceived mould, although I've gradually overcome that as I've become older and care less about fitting in. As a writer and adviser on creating diverse, healthy, productive work cultures where everyone can flourish, I’m professionally interested in this question too. What stops us from bringing our full identity to work? From trying out different skills or interests during our careers? Remote working during lockdowns gave employers unprecedented insights into our private worlds outside of the office and by extension our fuller personalities, our hobbies and our home lives. One positive consequence is that employers are now recognising more openly that we are multi-faceted humans with commitments and interests outside of our day job, and many are embracing more inclusive working practices and norms that help us to be more open with colleagues and clients about our circumstances, ambitions and constraints. But how much time do we spend on finding out about these other sides to our colleagues? In our high speed, long hours work culture we typically value task accomplishment more than interpersonal curiosity – and we have to stop pounding the work treadmill in order to enquire, listen, empathise and appreciate. But these behaviours are exactly the ones that help create strong, connected communities characterised by high levels of mutual trust, openness and support. Not only is this social connection the aspect of office life that we’ve been missing the most, according to this recent Microsoft study, but also it boosts wellbeing, belonging, creativity and those elusive higher levels of productivity (defined here as better quality outputs in less time). Some ways organisations can signal that bringing ‘the other me’ to work is encouraged and celebrated are: 1. Allowing people to invest time in ‘passion projects’ for a few hours per week/month 2. Recognising people’s contribution to running/supporting employee networks and other community-oriented initiatives in their job design and performance objectives 3. Participating in group challenges or shared fundraising activities 4. Setting up crowdsourcing tools via which people can pool their brainpower and experience drawn from external activities to help problem-solve or generate ideas 5. Encouraging storytelling about different lived experiences and career ‘ups and downs’. 6. Bringing in speakers from very different industries or disciplines As individuals, we can invite more disclosure from our colleagues and learn more about them are by asking: • What does your ideal day off look like? • What unfulfilled ambitions do you have? • Tell me about something or someone you’re really proud of? And some questions we can reflect on ourselves are: • What have I not devoted time to lately? (that I am missing) • What side of me have I kept hidden away? • What mode do colleagues/family usually see me in at work/at home? This way, we’re more likely to discover and enjoy the hidden rockstars around us at work, and in our circles outside of work. And we might get to enjoy that rockstar feeling ourselves for more than a day or two.

The term ‘quiet quitter’ has making waves in the press lately. Here’s how to rekindle a warm glow in your work life.

What does a good holiday mean to you? Enjoying real leisure time is harder than we think, for many reasons, and something we are collectively failing to do well. Here's why, and how we can polish up our rusty leisure habits this summer.

I was appalled at the US Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn Roe v Wade. As a UK citizen and resident past childbearing age, why should I care so much? It’s about freedom, choice, and 4 fundamental things women need to make their own reproductive health decisions.

Unsustainable workloads are a key factor behind the Great Resignation. So when, and why, do we say yes?

My interview about the future of work, originally published in Authority Magazine.

For this month's blog, I'm sharing the introduction from my business book The Future of Time.

What changes did we witness in our world of work in 2021? And 7 trends that will play out in 2022.

Does the thought of another meeting make you inwardly groan? Think again.

What we can learn from jury deliberations and how can we apply ‘forensic thinking’ at work?

How well do we actually ‘do’ rest? Not very well, as it happens. Here's why it's a skill worth investing time and effort in.

Why we're yearning to get lost.

The changing norms about when we work.

What we will remember about this tumultuous year when it’s (hopefully) in the distant past? What shapes our memory-making?

Two high-profile resignations last week reminded us that without listening, it is impossible to demonstrate empathy. The consequences are two-fold.

Battling through January with sunrises, skipping and practising cheerfulness.

What will we be saying in December about how our world of work has changed over the course of this year?

I've started my New Year resolutions early. Or is it late? Here's what I'm learning from my new habits.

Deep thinking is essential to doing great work. So why do we find it so hard to make time for this? Find out more about our typical 'time culture' at work and discover five ways to change this for the better.