Northern Planner

Weeknotes 4

Weeknotes 3

Weeknotes 2

This is a little late, but since I'm in charge, who's going to punish me?

It was one of those weeks at work where you do lots of stuff yet end up with nothing to show for it. It's something they never tell you about working for agencies when you sign up; you're mostly prepared for hard work but you're less ready for sheer amount of stuff you have to simultaneously do and think about.

I've been finding that multitasking leads to skimming over the surface of thing without getting into anything with the proper amount of rigour. Email, etc really doesn't help. So it's time to consciously go back to doing one thing well at a time and blocking email and internet for decent periods during the day.

In the swimming training quest, I had one of those days where everything felt wrong. It's a curious thing about human physiology that you can perform so differently in the space of a couple if days. The 'wrong' day was hellish, it felt like I wad swimming through treacle. Then two days later, everything was fluid, even the pain felt good. Odd, very odd.

I also made a decision to read magazines less for a bit. I've been reading the Economist and Prospect, along with two weekend papers, and it just doesn't leave time for anything else when you have a baby. There are too many books on my shelf waiting to be opened.

Weeknotes Week 1

Can't resist the temptation to join in with the idea of doing Weeknotes (I'm hardly the first) so I won't.

Looks like Thursday's the best day to do these. Monday's are full of fog, Fridays are all about looking forward to the weekend. Thursday feels like a good day to look back with an eye to looking forward.

I finished some work on pitch that I was quite pleased with. Pitches are always good to do at a newish employer. The accelerated pace forces people to work together, so you get to know people that little bit quicker - not just who they are, but what they're really like to work with.

You really get under the skin of an organisations culture, what kind of work it wants to do, the role of planning in that, the level of suit control freakery and lots of other stuff. I really learned about what people want from planners and the potential and ambition for future work. Some great, some not so great. Planners always have to earn their right to exist, but sometimes you do wish they weren't the only people who had to persuade everyone rather than occasionally tell.

Knowing this kind of stuff is important to me, I've made a decision that quality of life comes first, but career is still just that, it's a career, not just paying bills. I've got a better steer of the kind of things I'll be able to do and what I WANT to do.

At the start of the week, Mum and Dad were staying with us which is always nice. They hadn't seen our baby boy since he started eating, and enjoyed the fun and inevitable mess. He was in hospital last week, so we all loved him just a little bit more if that was possible. He seems to laugh at everything I do at the moment (like his Mum) so this week has been especially hard to leave him.

I've been working with Mother quite a lot recently. It's always nice to see how other agencies operate, but peering into one as secretive as Mother is doubly interesting.

Results of all this mean I'm getting to know quite a lot about biscuits and pizza, which makes a change from womens hair, supermarkets and shower gel.

 I also spent too much money on Amazon and began to watch the spoils trickle in. So I got to enjoy some old music I missed first tim around, by way of Curve's Doppledanger, some newish music in the form of Lj Kruzer and some Dadrock courtesy of Paul Weller. There's two months of books en route somewhere and a gazillion (official number for 'lots') albums too.

As you get older, you realise you get better at knowing what really makes you happy, rather than pursuing what you've been conditioned to think should do. For me that boils down to experiences rather than stuff, music and books are a big part of that, I've neglected the music, this is changing and it's making me very happy. When I go to up to great swimming pool in the sky my boy will be left one hell of library.