Thoughts

  The picture above is a word cloud of my clients’ and colleagues’ responses to this question: “What’s the first thing you think of when you think of me?”      I have it on my wall in my office and I get to see it every day. When I’m having a tough day, just […]

  Busy is not a badge to wear with pride. Yet we seem to want to show it to anyone who asks. How’s it going? Oh really busy. How about you? Yep, busy as.   I was running a workshop last week about how to create unhurriedly productive team cultures. The people in the group […]

As you’ll have observed, one of the big themes I write about is about being unhurried. Truth be told, I struggle as much as the next person on crafting an unhurried rhythm to my days. We’re living in a society that, on the surface at least, values speed and ‘more’ over slowness and ‘enough’.   […]

    I’ve been reflecting on the idea of ‘enough’.   I was first inspired by the idea of enough by the British philosopher, writer and management guru Charles Handy. Both he and his wife, a photographer, were self-employed. At the beginning of every year they would sit down and work out what enough was […]

  Being laid low with Covid over the past week has meant I’ve had to reschedule a lot of appointments. I was due to host a housewarming party. I had a bunch of client commitments in the calendar. And then I was supposed to be flying to Perth to visit family for the first time […]

    As I write this, I’m on a flight from Queenstown to Auckland. As I sit here, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness a beautiful exchange that I think is worth sharing with you.     Sitting across the aisle from me is a woman who was, at the start of the flight, clearly […]

Have you ever held a clear view on what to do about an issue, but you held back on sharing it because you thought you might be ridiculed? And later hear that very same view being later held up by the leaders as the right way to go?   Or maybe you’ve found yourself at […]

Do you ever get to the end of a week, a month, a year, in a kind of bedazzled state, and wondering if you’ve actually achieved anything for your efforts?   Last week, a client said to me “my work here is finishing. It’s been an amazing ride, but I’m not sure if I’ve achieved […]

  In Tim Ferris’ latest podcast episode, he interviews bestselling author and journalist A.J. Jacobs, who’s just published a book about the history of puzzles. I heard A.J. share this offhand idea that a good puzzle can be described in three stages: the question, the journey and the exclamation.   The question: What’s the answer? […]

  I’ve been going on about Unhurried Productivity for a while now. I thought you’d like to know why this topic is so important to me personally.   Back in the mid-90’s, I was a driven young 20-something professional. I was in my first real leadership role, as New Zealand National Manager for the international […]