The beauty of flexibility....

I love it in my office.  The networking and people focussed culture is one of the things that drew me to the company.  I think the richness of solutions you get and the energy behind new initiatives and innovation is massively intensified by involving people and listening to their points of view.  I love a catch up over a coffee, a working session in the break out area and love the fact that I can go and perch on someone's desk and ask their thoughts.  I get energised by the buzz of this kind of way of working and find it really enables me to feed my creative strength and encourage other people to feed their strengths too.

However, what I've recognised is that there are times when in order to focus, I need to take myself away from the hustle and bustle and give myself an opportunity to remove the external buzz and centre back in my goals and objectives.  I can be a little bit like a magpie for the shiny and new!  And I'm lucky that I am able to make choices over when I need to do this and am able to plonk myself at home or in a meeting room and crack on with what I have got going on.

This morning, I was due to sit in on a global TC and with a two week holiday coming up at the end of next week, recognised that I need to make sure I am planning my time really effectively.  I have made the mistake before of trying to cram everything in before and after a holiday - which often results in the good work of a holiday being undone by the hectic weeks preceeding and following.  So, today, I decided to stay at home this morning and get cracking with a plan.  To take the time without interruptions to objectively look at what I have coming up and plan when I'm going to do this.  Now I'm not a planner by nature.  But I've found that by taking this time and mentally committing to things, it enables me to inform others better, make the most well informed decisions on where I spend my time and also allow me to keep on top of my wellbeing too!  I really don't want to go straight from work to the airport without having the time to make sure I've had time to pack!!

The added bonus today, was the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the view from my kitchen whilst doing so.  There's nothing like a blue sky and seeing a Red Kite swooping around to help with a bit of calm-perspective planning!  Here are just a few snapshots: