I’ve been helping out with office designs at work over the last few weeks and it’s interesting to watch the challenges raised when I make suggestions that compromise density in the service of increasing productivity. This is a common theme, every time I’ve done an office design the facilities manager...
I was up early this morning, excited to get in 30 minutes on my exercise bike watching TED talks before walking on the beach and enjoying the amazing sunrise. I like to pick TED talks pretty much at random and be ‘pleasantly surprised’. It’s ironic then that today I got...
There’s endless talk on the blogs about the dangers of sitting often linked to the benefits of a standing desk. I agree completely with the former, but the idea of standing still for long stretches of the day fills me with horror. In my experience there’s nothing worse for me...
I’m seeing a lot more burnout at work for many reasons, all of them very disturbing. It’s bad for the employer because people become disengaged, productivity suffers, stress increases all around, sickness levels increase and retention suffers. It’s clearly bad for the individuals and their families and it’s also bad...
Unfortunately most of us have come across metrics that are used to measure individual performance, to provide a quantified ‘stick’ with which to beat the under-performing individual, I hate them with a passion. Whilst they might have some validity in an assembly line, they have no place where I work,...
A few days ago I read the book Waking Up after also reading about a new kind of Christianity. Both books started me on a journey of self discovery. I’ve always been an atheist, so hearing others describe atheism is interesting but not mind expanding. What’s really interesting is discovering...
Yesterday was one of those so very rare days, when everything in the world seems to line up and progress becomes effortless. I woke up mostly free of pain, dodged the showers on my walk to Caffe Nero, had a great time reading before heading home just before 10am. The...
I’m exposed to a lot of start-ups, flooded with VC money and trying to make their mark on the world, or get bought. Evernote rises above them all, it’s been the foundation of my personal knowledge management system for many years, but more than that it’s been an inspiration to...
As an atheist, Christian books are not often on my reading list, in fact I’ve probably only read a handful of religious books in my life. This month though I’ve been tempted into reading one, A New Kind of Christian which was recommended by Debbie’s pastor as one of the...
I’ve been meditating in one form or another for 40 years, I first discovered it as a kid through yoga and I didn’t think of it as meditation then, just conscious breathing. Fifteen years ago this occasional anonymous practice became more systematic and got a name, Vipassana Meditation, now a...