I have a dream. Now what?

13 May 2020.

We’ve been in lockdown / social distancing mode for at least seven weeks. 

We are living through unprecedented times (to borrow a now familiar phrase) but at least we had this slogan to cut through some of the complexity: Stay home, Protect the NHS, Save lives. Should we have acted sooner? Yes. The fact that the UK has the highest death toll in Europe would suggest that we (I mean the government / powers that be) underestimated the nature of the threat. However, the high death toll is also indicative of wider societal ills such as long-term under-funding of the NHS; prevalence of comorbidities with the population (sometimes linked to lifestyle choices or lack thereof); workplace cultures that disadvantage and demoralise ethnic minority workers; socioeconomic differences between and within-communities; and the list could go on. 

I prefer not to dwell on what went wrong (controversial thing for a history graduate to say because how else can we learn from past mistakes if we don’t look back?). What I mean is that there is a bigger fish to fry. We are not out of the woods yet and, until we are, political point scoring will do more harm than good. Conversely, holding the government to account is a different kettle of fish (here goes another fish metaphor) and necessary. Fortunately, and this is just my opinion, in the UK, the tone of the public discourse is focused less on politics and more on accountability. Yet, judging from the comments sections of the Guardian COVID-19 pages, the national press could be doing a lot more to hold the government to account.

In contrast, the recent happenings in Sierra Leone illustrate the dangers of political point scoring at a time like this. Although the government’s response to the pandemic has been one of the most decisive and swift, historical divisions and politically motivated skirmishes (frankly aided and abetted by the leading opposition party APC) have escalated off late, which is maddening and sad in equal parts because this is a country with a history of civil war. In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t support any party (I have my own concerns about politics in Africa that I will hopefully address at a later date) but I do have family members on either side of the political spectrum and some (on both sides) were avid campaigners during the 2018 election.

To get back to the point, this is actually a post about life under lockdown after all. To say that my life has changed is the understatement of the century. Life on earth has changed period. Some of these patterns would be familiar to most of you.

TV watching has gone up

Food consumption has gone up

Online learning has gone up

Exercise has gone up and down

I can actually quantify some of the time I’ve spent on online courses by applying the skills I’ve picked up along the way. I have been on furlough since 20 April. I return to work next week (WFH that is). From the start, I knew I wanted to use the time to learn some skills and do some life admin in the process. I first encountered the term life admin through a colleague-cum-friend at work. Urban dictionary says that life admin is when you do “personal day-to-day chores that are of an administrative nature”. Perhaps what I have been doing over the past weeks doesn’t fit this orthodoxy but it has certainly been administrative in nature.

I am one of those people who collect notebooks (it’s not a thing (at least I don’t think it is) but I am going to make it into a thing because I have lots of them!). It’s just something that I have been doing since I was a teen and it makes sense because I write stories. In short, I am a prolific note taker on top of documenting stuff on computers. As part of the process of trying to account for everything I have stored on memory sticks, notebooks, etc. to date (a project that is currently WIP and the inspiration behind an upcoming post), I decided to create a living, breathing document that is easy to update, search, retrieve and analyse information. As you can imagine, the retrieval process with notebooks is often a nightmare and some of the information can be lost and / or retrieved without context. Equally, if like me you have been dealing with information overload, the actions I have taken make sense.

I have built a dynamic Excel calendar (exhibit 1). The good thing about the internet is that someone much more adept at using Excel (or any other software) does all the hard work, which you benefit from by simply customising the formulas (or code). I have yet to successfully apply this to VBA but watch this space! 

The workbook consists of two sheets. The primary sheet is sort of like a dashboard, which, at a glance, shows which days I have allocated tasks to by highlighting the dates in blue. If I select any of the blue cells, this displays a task list. On top of this, if the year and / or month changes, this updates the calendar view. The main addition from me is the conditional formatting of the task list using the IF function. This has been set up in the second sheet. The basic principle is that any task that should be completed Today() will be highlighted in red and the status will be updated to “In Progress”, otherwise if the end date is sometime in the future, the status will say “Open” and the row is highlighted in green, or “Closed” and grayed-out if the end date has passed.

Exhibit 1

Screenshot of the calendar view showing tasks assigned to a date (13/5/20) on the calendar

 

Now I have a tracker with most of the things I want to do on it (and the list keeps growing!). I don’t want to give the impression that I am leading a regimented life with every second of every minute of every hour of every day accounted for and micromanaged. I’m not. It is precisely in the face of chaos and complexity that I have a need for such a tool. In fact, what I value the most about the tool is that it is teaching me how to prioritise and focus. I can only do so much in any given day and I imagine I will be doing even less once I am back in work. 

Equally, nothing is set in stone. This Herculean task list will take time and flexibility to navigate (see exhibit 2 and exhibit 3). For some of the tasks, I have budgeted time in minutes. The most recent count suggests that it will take 45,596 minutes to complete those tasks, which is equivalent to ~760 hours and ~32 days. Sounds achievable, right? I would actually have to utilise every second of every minute of every hour in those 32 days. Not going to happen. The plan I have devised (which is subject to change) is to devote 24 hours split across seven days of the week (or ~3.4 hours per day). Consequently, I should be able to get through a subset of my task list in ~222 days. That’s more realistic.

Exhibit 2

Number of projects in the tracker by theme / activity group

I was a little overzealous in the beginning and wanted to accomplish as many tasks as possible. That was burdensome. I struggled with the administrative side (that goes into making the tool a living, breathing document) and actually putting the time into studying, reading, etc. I have had many unproductive days since, which has forced me to re-evaluate my strategy. 

Exhibit 3

The top five activity groups account for 99% of the budgeted time in minutes

Just recently, I was reminded of a talk I went to back in 2014-15 at a UK magic circle law firm. I can’t remember the name of the speaker but his presentation was on finding your spark and never having to work a day in your life. I won’t philosophise on it because I think it is a rather simple concept to grasp, and how it is applied can be deeply personal / subjective. If in doubt, you should perhaps try Googling it for clarity. Personally, the process of building a productivity tool, documenting what I would like to learn / do and struggling with the self-imposed demands to keep learning / doing has been cathartic. There are several issues to contend with. I don’t have a one-track mind. There is a lot of information out there, which doesn’t help with the first point. I want to solve problems. I want to be impactful. 

I love learning but increasingly felt I was learning just for the sake of it. 

What is the point?

What is the end goal?

Is it sustainable?

These days it is quite common to hear that we have to keep learning and reinventing ourselves because technology has the power to upend all aspects of our lives. Does this mean we should all be data scientists? I’ve been tempted. However, I have also struggled to articulate what is my passion. Saying that I am passionate about many things, though fundamentally true, sounds a little unserious and wishy washy. It’s like saying I am passionate because I am passionate, which is a meaningless tautology. Where is the burden of proof? It is in in the pudding. As a result, I am no longer satisfied with becoming a Jack-Of-All-Trades. 

I want to be a master. This means that I should be more project-oriented and get things done. I need to focus.