Author: Tim

Today I walked home from work with my elder daughter who had dropped into the city to pick up a few things. On the way back we called into a branch of Costa for a drink and while I was there I picked up one of their loyalty cards. I’ve never bothered with one before because I don’t tend to go to Costa unless I am with another member of my family and since they all have loyalty cards already it hasn’t really been worth me getting one. In any case, I already have loyalty cards for Caffè Nero, Cafe W (in Waterstones bookshop), McDonalds (occasional use) and the University cafes.

Reading the blurb on the card set me thinking about which of the various coffee loyalty cards I hold is the best deal. Costa give you 5 points (worth 5 pence) for each pound you spend so that is, in effect, a 5% return. Caffè Nero and Cafe W are both ‘buy 9 coffees and get the 10th free’ which, assuming you always buy the same coffee, equates to an 11.1% return. The University cafe deal is buy 8 and get the 9th free (12.5% return) and McDonalds gives you a free coffee for six purchased, which is 16.7% return. So, McDonalds is the best deal – but also definitely the worst coffee. Thinking in more detail, Caffè Nero is probably the winner because their deal is such that you can buy 9 cheap coffees (e.g. regular Americano at £2.40) and get a free large fancy coffee (say £3 in value) which works out at around 14% return for a much better product (than McDs). The snag with this argument is that I now don’t drink milky coffee and don’t particularly want a large Americano, I can’t make full use of the deal. Anyway, all of which probably partly explains why Caffè Nero is my coffee shop of choice (with Cafe W also right up there) and Costa isn’t.

On my way home from work today I listened to another episode of the excellent Hurry Slowly podcast, this one an interview with writer Oliver Burkeman titled ‘Against Time Management‘. I have previously read Burkeman’s book ‘The Antidote’ and enjoy his column in the Review section of Saturday edition of The Guardian newspaper. He writes on topics such as busyness, happiness and leading a productive life.

In the podcast interview I particularly enjoyed a section in which Burkeman and host Jocelyn Glei discussed how the concept of ‘time management’ is a misnomer – you cannot actually manage time, just utilise it as it passes – and their consideration of whether thinking of time as a resource like money (‘time is money’) is a valid concept (it is and it isn’t – money can be invested, banked, spent whereas time simply passes and has to be used as soon as it is gained). Burkeman argued that it is better not to try to manage time but, instead, to try to think in terms of constraints on what activity you can pursue. These constraints include things like space, money, energy and, importantly, time. He admitted that he didn’t really have a term to describe this approach and struggles to fully describe it. As I walked along thinking about this I turned the idea over in my head – was he simply talking about prioritisation, was it managing activities or something else. In the end I came to the conclusion that ‘Action Management’ was a better description and the goal was to become good at managing your action within the identified constraints. For example, at that point in the day I had ~6 hours of time left before sleep, some energy, a high degree of freedom and a range of things I could or wanted to do – go for a run and have a post-run shower, check the tyre pressures on the car, review a job application that my daughter was making, eat tea, watch a couple of programmes on television, put the bin out for collection in the morning, write a blog entry, meditate for 10 minutes and read something scientific and so my task was simply to navigate my way through the actions necessary to accomplish these activities in a smooth and efficient manner. From now on, in this way, I’m going to try to think in terms of managing my action amidst a suite of varying constraints rather than time management as much as I can and see what effect it has on how I feel.

I also really enjoyed Burkeman standing up for the idea of idleness. By this he meant true idleness not, say, relaxation now to enable better performance in the future. Idleness simply for its own sake. This immediately made me recall a second-hand book that I bought years and years ago (~30) when I was an undergraduate student – Jerome K. Jerome’s book of essays titled ‘The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow’. I still have this book on my bookshelves and I am now going to have to pull it out and dip into it in some idle moments. For some reason, I find the idea of being an Idle Fellow rather appealing!

In the late 1980s and early 1990s I loved watching the TV series ‘Inspector Morse’ based on the series of novels by Colin Dexter (which I have also subsequently read). John Thaw’s portrayal of Dexter’s erudite but somewhat grumpy, crossword solving, beer drinking, opera loving, detective working in Oxford (broadcast shortly after I had been a university student there) gave us one of THE iconic actor/TV character combinations of recent decades. Morse was always accompanied by his trusty Detective Sergeant Lewis and, once Morse left us in the 33rd episode we were treated to many series of the also excellent Lewis (now Detective Inspector). More recently, in a masterstroke of characterisation and historical setting, those of us who fell in love with Morse in the 1980s/1990s have been delighted to be able to follow the early part of his career, as the young Morse (given name: Endeavour) made his first steps as a Detective Sergeant in 1960s Oxford.

In many respects Endeavour is better than Morse. This might just be a product of it being produced in a more modern era (better production technology etc) and showing less signs of the obvious biases of the 1980s (re-watching the original episodes of Morse, as I have been, is an education into the casual sexism of the times). But I think Endeavour is also better than Morse because of the absolutely superb performances of Shaun Evans as the young Morse and Roger Allam as his mentor, Detective Inspector Thursday. Endeavour does a great job of picking up on the development of the various character traits exhibited by the older Morse and providing glimpses of what ‘later’ becomes the back-story of the original character. Morse’s simmering but, so far, unrequited relationship with Thursday’s daughter Joan has the potential to fill in a huge piece of the jigsaw that defines the older man, whose relationships with women are always tainted and constrained by an unexplained pain from earlier in his life.

The 1960s setting is wonderfully recreated. I am sure that there are some viewers who are able to pick holes left, right and centre with the details, but nothing too obvious jumps out at me.

Series 5 of Endeavour finished last night and it is amazing to realise that Endeavour is already up to 23 episodes (Inspector Morse made it to 7 series and 33 episodes and Lewis to 9 series and 33 episodes). Given that the two previous series (in terms of broadcast date, not setting date) both made it to 33 episodes it is tempting to think that there may be 10 more episodes of Endeavour to look forward too – that is the kind of symmetry and detail that the writers of all three series would have appreciated.

For quite some time now I have been meaning to put a lot more insulation into our roof because one thing our house isn’t, is warm. Months ago I identified some suitable insulation – 20cm thick and not made of glass fibre, so much easier, safer and more pleasant to handle. It was even on offer (3 for 2) which, at £21 a roll and with 8 rolls needed, was a saving not to be sneezed at. But then, at the end of last year, just around the time I was thinking about buying the insulation the offer ended and it went out of stock for home delivery. In an instant the price had rocketed and the convenience gone. Autumn changed to winter, including some exceptionally cold weather, the house stayed cold and the ‘sort out loft insulation’ job remained on my to-do list.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that the price offer was back on AND home delivery was possible and so despite it already being March and with temperatures rising steadily I put in the order. And on Wednesday of last week the house filled up with rolls of insulation, partially blocking the hallway, sitting waiting for me to move them upstairs. My intention this weekend was simply to cart the rolls upstairs, lift them into the loft and leave them there until a spare half day magically appeared to allow me to unpack them, cut them, lay them out etc. I would have been happy if, today, I could have simply moved the rolls into the loft, but having started to shift them around it seemed much more sensible to begin to lay them. So, for two and a half hours my wife and I scrabbled around in the dusty, dim loft space, cutting and ripping the rolls apart, and packing them into the empty spaces across the top of the existing thin and tatty insulation. I had carefully measured the space in the loft, which was a complex shape due to a bay, and a large boarded platform that we use for storage in the middle, and had figured we would need 8 rolls. Consequently, it was immensely satisfying that it turned out that we needed exactly 8 rolls – no waste, no missed sections and a better fit than I could ever have imagined.

It may now be Spring and Summer will soon be on its way but Winter is coming. Winter is ALWAYS coming – and we can now be smug (or should that be snug) in the knowledge that we are ready for it.

Just over a month ago I wrote a post here about my attempts to grow a new houseplant (My Little Plantlet). I am pleased to be able to report back now that my plantlet seems to be going from strength to strength. The small new leave that had just emerged at that time has now grown much bigger, a second new leaf (bringing the total to four) has also sprouted and there is already a tiny shoot which promises to deliver a fifth leaf in the near future:

In the picture above you can see the two original leaves lower down, the largest (third) leaf angled towards the camera position, the fourth leaf already larger than the original two retreating away from the camera and the tiny little shoot reaching upwards at the top of the stem. The plantlet seems now to be fairly resilient and the stem is thickening a little.

I am not sure that I have ever had so much success with plants (I should write another post soon about the way my IKEA succulents are expanding rapidly on my office windowsill) and I can’t help feeling that I have somehow absorb some magic biological powers from now being in the School of Biological and Marine Sciences at work.

I am quite an avid listener to podcasts, usually on my walk to and from work and generally on topics relating to creativity, leadership, productivity etc. A couple of days ago I stumbled on a new podcast (for me at least) called Hurry Slowly. This podcast is curated by Jocelyn K. Glei, an author who I have come across through an excellently written and beautifully crafted series of books published under the 99U brand. Glei has now turned her attention towards podcasting and in each episode she interviews an expert/author about a topic related to the podcast theme of ‘[being] more productive, creative and resilient through the simple act of slowing down’. All of which is right up my street.

So far I have listened to two episodes (the first two episodes) from October 2017.

In the first episode (10th October 2017) she talks with Jason Fried, the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp about the scheduling systems he has developed within his business and the strategies to protect time (both work and personal time) that he employs. I was particularly struck by his system of running his business in 6 week sprints during which just a one or two projects requiring the full 6 weeks together with a few small (e.g. 1/2 day) projects were the sole focus of effort. At the end of each sprint everyone takes a week or two to take stock, today up loose ends, recover and decide on the activity for the next sprint. A key part of this technique is that 6 weeks is long enough to provide a substantial amount of time but short enough not to be daunting and seem endless. In addition, the projects chosen have to be complete pieces of work with clearly defined end points and not simply ‘6 weeks work on longer-term project X’. He described this system in the context of his whole company work structure but I found myself thinking about how/whether something similar could work for an individual and, if so, what the optimum time span might be in my case, whether it was necessary for it always to be the same, how it would work in a job like mine that has specific bursts of activity at different times of year. A second thread of the discussion that interested me was on his thoughts about the importance of properly disconnecting from work when at home. I have thought about this before and I am not someone who is glued to my work email all evening but I do still find myself drawn to check up on things when I am at home. Fried gave plenty of convincing arguments against doing this and it is certainly something that I am going to consider some more.

The second episode I listened to (17th October 2017) was an interview with author Florence Williams about the benefits that getting out into nature can have on cognitive performance and general well-being. Again, this was not a new topic to me but the podcast certainly made me think about my activity and I was left wondering whether I could find a way to get myself somewhere where I can see a view more often from my office environment (for example, how quickly I could get myself to Plymouth waterfront to take in some sea air, see some waves etc). It also made me want to explore the idea of bringing the outside into my office using oils from hinoki trees because when Glen and Williams talked about this it really made me want to smell what they were describing.

Hurry Slowly is now (just) up to its 20th episode so I have 18 to catch up on. It is a great feeling, like when you discover a new author and realise there is a whole new body of work to get through over time. I am definitely going to be working my way through the Hurry Slowly podcasts and related to this discovery I am also intended to add a list of podcasts and other websites that I visit for inspiration, to this site.