Met my team for lunch this afternoon, in person, after 4 months of lockdown and seeing everyone through a screen. It was a joyous affair – every single one of these people I would make time for even if we didn’t work together. The sentiment is reciprocal: even someone who no longer works with us joined us for a meal in a public park. We spent nearly 3 hours, talking, ideating, and rebuilding social capital that CoVID has inevitably eroded.
I used the commute to make some headway into the suggested readings of the course I’m doing. While I still dislike the commute (how on earth have I done it for a decade?), the empty carriage and the time-box (two boxes to contain me!!) meant I could get through discrete pieces that I had been putting off reading.
***
Swimming lessons have also recommenced, which means I have the ability now to write this while I wait for the lessons to finish. I remember this rather vaguely too – the noise of the pumps and water sloshing in the background while the instructors yelled over it at the kids to perfect this stroke or to kick stronger and harder. It has been a long time for sure!
***
Writing a hundred – or two hundred – words is not too hard when I tackle multiple things. Writing the same with focus on ONE idea is a little more challenging. That is really evident when I have a lot on my mind: zoning out of all those, and zoning in on a single idea is something I want to get better at. Most of the work writing I’ve done recently has required me to shrink the idea down to its quintessence because people who read it “don’t have time”, and inevitably, it turns out to be false economy. They ask more questions and I spend more time explaining.