Yesterday I took four hours for a cup of coffee. Four hours?
Well, I hadn’t seen a dear friend for some time and they live quite a distance apart (London is a big city, after all), so I took the train and then tube up to their part of town in the morning and met them, yes, for one cup of coffee, for about an hour. As we parted, they asked what I was doing next. “Heading home, I came up to town to have coffee with a friend, now I am going back”.
Yes, there are days when I go into central London and book multiple meetings to fill my day, but on this occasion, I consciously took half a day out to get out of the house (and my home office), to disconnect from work, and to anchor that half day on reconnecting with a friend.
Sometimes we choose to fill our day with lots of meetings, things to do, work tasks, errands, whatever.
Other times, we can choose to “anti-fill” our day, to consciously choose to do only one thing and create space around it.
Oh, and as I write this I realised I am doing something very similar next week, heading all the way to Cambridge (about two hours each way) simply to have lunch with someone. Ok, on this one I am cheating a little, as on the way back I am doing that week’s podcast not just live, but live from the Tortoise Media offices in central London, my guest being one of the leaders of Tortoise, Tessa Murray.