For many of us, there is a lull between Christmas and New Year. It may not have the festivities of the holidays themselves, but equally, there’s none of the pressure. The equivalent of the Thursday night out vs the party on a Saturday.

Of course, if you work in travel, retail, or hospitality, it’s still a busy time (no doubt there is some similar joy in the low season!), healthcare too, but for many industries, it’s fairly quiet.

In many ways, I used to enjoy working through this period… finally completing that mandatory training that I had been putting off all year, setting goals, maybe even sorting through the files in the desk or on the computer… a great time to get organised.

However, busy or not, now is traditionally a good time to reflect on the year: What happened, and what was learnt that can be useful for next year?… yet rather than run through history, I thought I would share a few interesting observations instead—those that never made it to the blog.

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Speed Up or Slow Down? When you’re on the motorway and lanes merge, do you speed up to let the person in behind you, or slow down to let them in front? It feels like there are two different approaches to life here… what is better, being a speed-up or slow-down kind of person…

Sending Cards. Christmas cards are fading, even more so this year (more email and social media), but what happens when you receive a card from someone new? Normally there is a bit of social panic as you hastily write a card in return.

Sure it is better to be sending good wishes first… but how early, and how to best handle?… How often you find yourself responding to others rather than sending first… certainly seems like a good KPI!

Juggling Too Many Things. Despite our own self-belief, humans are not good at multitasking. Every task has a cognitive load, and switching between tasks takes effort taking time to get back up to speed. The more frequently you switch, the slower progress generally becomes.

This year, I seemed to discover another effect: even if I separate tasks and tackle them in order, the fact that they are still there, hanging over me in the mental to-do list, still seems to slow progress. Some of the mental energy needed elsewhere is absorbed… and it does however seem to be getting worse in our hyper-connected, multitasking orientated world.

Now maybe this is a function of the tasks themselves, lack of sleep or even age..! but there needs to be a list or technique to compartmentalise and close them off. something to find in 2025.. being aware of this dynamic mind-you is a good first step!

Concentration Takes Practice. I don’t know about you, but it certainly feels like attention spans are shortening, with the rise of AI summarisation only making it worse.

I mean, why read a whole book or article when I can plug it into AI, get it summarised, and then ask the detailed, targeted questions I want or think I need to ask? This year it has certainly allowed me to cover more ground. However, it has also become a bit of a bad habit, after all reading the whole book can lead you into areas and questions you might not have considered.

Long form reading takes practice and time… so something for the 2025 resolutions. Time to get book reading-fit again.

But… are Business Books Too Long? To completely contradict my previous point… sometimes it does feel that many business books are written to meet a publisher’s target of length.. which is based on our perception of how long a book should be to be of value… rather than valuing the information with it. The number of pages, it seems, is a mental shortcut we use at the airport or station when browsing.

How many times have you ploughed through a 300-page book, all to explain an idea that really could have been covered in 15 PowerPoint slides or less. This is frustrating.

I do wonder, with the rise of LLMs/AI, if we will start storing information, currently in books, in a different form. As data in the background, it could be served to readers customised based on their interests and knowledge level, with of course recommended questions or prompts from the author. Maybe a project for 2025… could this even work for fiction or a whodunnit..!

Travelling is Good for the Soul. I know we’re all online these days, and many can work from almost anywhere. However, I am always struck by how rewarding it is whenever I’m in the office with others.

New ideas get formed and I often return with refreshed outlook and inspiration, which contributes to heightened productivity once back worked remotely again.

It really is not one or the other, but a hybrid approach that works really well… so hopefully more of the same for 2025.

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So, as the year wraps up, the mince pies come to an end, and the Easter eggs start to appear (apparently)… I hope 2024 has been good for you. However, whatever it brought, I also hope next year is better.

Wishing everyone a fantastic 2025. Best wishes, everyone.

Summer is over and with year-end festivities still to start we are in that bit of a lull as the nights (and weather) draw in.

Despite the descending gloom it also seems the perfect time to get away, a bit of a change before the holiday season starts and as a result, I’ve just got back from a week diving.

This was my first live-aboard dive trip, purely boat-based. Bobbing about on the Red Sea, no land, for a week it was 5 days of four meals a day, not being able to stay awake past 9 pm, and having to face up to the dreaded words: it’s a marine toilet (those who know, know and those who don’t I am not explaining!)… oh yes, and we did some diving too.

Truth be told, it was a great trip—turtles, fishes, and a lot of history with plenty of wrecks in what is a very busy marine shipping route.

However, now I am back and as with all new experiences, a few new things to think about.

Meeting New People.

It was fantastic to get out and spend some time with new people. People I didn’t really know and to have the opportunity to get to know them better.

Most of us spend most of our time in our daily lives talking with the same people, friends, family and colleagues. This is our comfort zone and we tend to know them well. Yes, we also get out to external meetings, events and conferences, but even then we typically share similar backgrounds, jobs and outlook on life.

What was interesting last week, was being able to break this mould and chat with people who live in completely different circles. Yes, there was a common interest (diving) but outside of this, we all came from different perspectives.

This made me realise just how easily we can slip into living in our own echo chamber of views (even when we think we are not).

Like the old-fashioned definition of ‘a community’, last week was different and thoroughly refreshing.

Know When to Stop

Diving can be pretty tiring at the best of times, and with four dives a day, by the end of the week, I was getting pretty exhausted. Maybe there is a point when you get used to it, but I was nowhere near that! (running for the bus this week, I’ve definitely felt fitter mind you – which is good)

Towards the end of the trip, as my tiredness grew, I started to notice mistakes creeping in. Feeling cold, struggling to get fins off, wet suit on, let alone getting up the ladder to get out of the water.

Getting ready for a dive, a chain of events culminated in me pinching my finger in the weight belt buckle, resulting in a dramatic flush of red across the deck. (it looked more dramatic than it actually was).

Now bleeding from an injury is never good, especially at sea. It is not so much that Jaws may be out there (and would be ‘chumming’ the water) but a very real risk of infection that is the immediate concern.

Yet, realising I made a mistake through being tired, my bigger concern was other future potential errors that could await me if I continued… some of which could have much more serious consequences. So I decided to call it a day, stop diving, and just rest… of course, within 24 hours, feeling better I bounced back.

This really made me realise how performance is related to being fresh and rested.

Yes, it is sometimes good to push to get something done, but the more tired you are the harder it is to do something well. Knowing when to stop is key

Mobile Connectivity

Undoubtedly our smartphones are a marvel of the modern world, increasingly we are always connected. However for the first few days, bobbing about on the water, in the middle of nowhere, we had no mobile signal—none at all. It is a pretty rare event these days.

Of course, with no connectivity we all reverted to the old ways of interacting… chatting, making each other tea (the odd biscuit, and strangely Twinkies!) and reading books.

It was all very nice really. Even the anxiety of not knowing what was going on in the rest of the world started to fade as it continued.

Then, as soon as we ventured closer to land we ‘connected’.

Phones lit up with notifications, dumping emails and WhatsApp messages that all “needed” a reply.

The change of mood and dynamics on the boat was stark.

The conversation stopped as we all caught up on messages. Yes, still sitting in a group but engrossed in our phones rather than chatting.

I don’t know how we get this balance right, but it really doesn’t feel like we have it right at the moment… missing out on the information around us, due to the information in our phone… missing out on the community around us due to the community on our phone… somehow the priority need rebalancing.

Back reality

So, some reflections and things to think about now I am back in the world of work.

• Meet new people. Expanding horizons and getting out of the bubble more.
• Knowing when to stop. Stopping to avoid mistakes—it can be costly in the long run – rest can make a big difference.
• Get off the phone. Interact with the world around you—it’s far more interesting.

Back to it this week, somewhat refreshed and hopefully with a spring in my step. It was good to get out, and it’s great to be back.

Have a great week, everyone!