My Working Life, Insights and Tips

Each day this week while on Holiday with Steph in Filey I’m planning to write a post covering a different element of my working life.  I’ve carefully designed this life so as to maximise my impact and productivity with the lowest levels of stress and minimal working hours.  Whilst some of the things I’m forced to do due to my health won’t apply to many people, some of the insights and tips should be at least interesting.

This post provides the outline that the other posts will develop further, the items below are in the order that I will be writing the posts:

1. Focus my work on service to others
2. Develop an outside in perspective
3. Maximise impact and minimise hours
4. Maximise productivity and eliminate waster
5. Manage my energy

By way of introduction to this series of posts it’s worth providing a little context.  Starting with my job:

I work mostly as a strategy advisor on Workplace Services to a large IT Services company, Workplace Services include management of virtual and physical desktops, laptops, mobile devices, printers and personal productivity, personal knowledge management, communication and collaboration tools.  Although strategy is the main area of focus I also advise projects and programmes, do organisational design and provide a lot of technology consultancy.  I also do a lot of coaching and mentoring.

Many of the changes have been designed as a result of my health challenges and opportunities:

I have a number of auto-immune conditions, chronic Migraines and Fibromyalgia as well as the usual side-effects of the medications I’m on.  This means I struggle to sleep, am often in pain, tire very easily, suffer from brain fog and frequent headaches which sometimes progress to migraines.  However as a result of the changes I’ve made to my work, personal and home life many of these health issues are fairly stable, with flares only once a month on average and manageable symptoms day to day.

The picture is of the beach at the end of the street, which has been hugely important in keeping me sane on the bad days, and providing endless fun on the good days.