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.
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.
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.
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