6 Things on My Mind

When I was planning to leave the OU, I began planning lots of mini-projects for myself. This was driven partly by an anxiety that without the structure of work I’d find myself watching Facebook reels for hours, or rearranging my sock drawer on a daily basis. As I don’t play golf m(and have no desire to do so, or own a motorbike, I needed to fill the time I reasoned. But I quickly found myself with a list of twenty or so activities I wanted to undertake, from becoming a coffee nerd to starting a newsletter on Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels. I still might do these, but I then began to feel stress that I wouldn’t have time for all of them.

I was pondering this in the car, and prophetically, Prefab Sprout’s song “Desire As” came on my Spotify playlist. In it he intones the lyrics “I’ve got 6 things on my mind/You’re no longer one of them”. Taking an interpretation that was not intended, I decided this was a good manner in which to approach my new set of activities. I would only allow myself to have 6 new ones at a time. They might either reach completion, or move to Business As Usual (I just miss saying “it’s now transitioned to BAU” in OU meetings), and thus doesn’t require as much cognitive effort to maintain. As all those management books like to tell us, building behaviours into habits is the best approach.

In addition there is the second half of that couplet – moving some things that you used to be concerned about to the “meh” pile. You have to make space for the new entries to the list of six. So, here’s my current “6 things on my mind” with related progress:

1. Fitness – I wanted to get back to a reasonable level of fitness, and after a few false starts I am now running four times a week, with some additional yoga. This has finally started getting some traction, but not enough to move off the list yet.
2. Weekly long walk with Teilo – coastal or otherwise I try to take Teilo (my dog) for a long walk somewhere in Wales. I’ve done this most weeks and plan it in every week, weather permitting.
3. Hockey analytics – I wanted to try and learn something new, and learning Welsh is on my waiting list of things to come into the top, but I started keeping a hockey analytics blog. Partly this is because I love ice hockey, but it’s also an interesting way to explore the intersection between data, analytics and human activity, unpredictability and creativity.
4. Fiction writing – I wanted to start on writing a novel, but apart from a couple of days in the summer, this has not received the attention the others on the list have.
5. Vinyl on the beach Instagram- I wanted something fairly trivial and purely fun for myself. I have set up an Instagram account which features pictures of album covers out and about in Wales. Because I combine this with the Teilo walks, it has been relatively easy to incorporate. This might drop off the list soon as it is just approaching general practice now.
6. Consultancy/work – I am on the board of trustees at the National Extension College, have two PhD students I am still supervising, have given a couple of talks and have recently taken on a piece of report writing. So I’ve managed to keep my hand in, without work being as prominent as before

“You’re no longer one of them”. Things that have dropped off my radar as major concerns:

1. The OU – I mean I still love it, but I don’t have to think about the institution, what new priorities or strategies have been introduced or higher education on a regular basis
2. Ed tech – I keep up to date on some things, but I have the luxury of saying “I don’t want to read another effing AI thought piece this week”.
3. Commuting/travel – I didn’t need to go into the OU much but it was becoming more common for various meetings to be scheduled as in person. Also I don’t go to conferences much now, so that travel is mainly thinking about holidays now.
4. Journal – as a co-editor of JIME for a long time I was always trying to keep it functioning on the margins of people’s time. Now I have handed over that responsibility I appreciate its absence.

So there it is, 80s indie-pop as life management method. Next week, new wave synthpop as productivity tips 🙂

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