Getting back into blogging has been one of my goals for years, and it felt unattainable. I’ve been absorbed in being a full-time academic for the past few years, and it has felt too full on to ‘have time’ to blog.
In December I undertook a writing challenge using the Pennebaker writing protocol, and it reawakened my love for free writing, and exploring curiosities whilst writing. I also perused some of my favourite books and realized that it’s not about having time, it is about changing the way I work and view work. In his book 4000 weeks, Oliver Burkman says – ‘ The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control – when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen.’
I realized that if this is something I want to do, I must make the time for it. But I can’t just make the time and then trust that I’ll ‘feel’ like blogging, it’s about creating systems that will prompt the behaviour. Because ‘You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems’. This comes from Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is applicable to so much more than a personal goal – how many of us have systems at work that allow us to do our best work? Or in healthcare to prevent us from making patient errors? More about that at another time. Back to me…
Creating a system where blogging or free writing is scheduled, prioritized, and ‘prompted’ means making some trade-offs. It means reassessing and challenging some of my comfortable habits that is literally part of my identity. My habit of trying to empty my inbox everyday (never-ending I always fail), my habit of responding to everyone – even if it’s not applicable to me, my habit of being incredibly responsive to all text messages. My habit of ‘doing’ focus work whilst incessantly checking my email. My habit of taking on work I have no interest in, because I want to be perceived as a team player (at all costs even to the detriment of my own projects, sanity, and workload).
Making time to write, is not just a resolution or an intention though. Because in my other favourite book, Clear Thinking, author Shane Parish refers to an interview with the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, and his research shows that instead of making decisions, we should make rules that automate our behaviour.
So, the ‘new system’ entails two rules. The rule is that during the work week as soon as I sit down at my laptop, I will write for 15-20 minutes. This will be before I get stuck in my inbox, and before I pay attention to other people’s demands on my time. Should I be unable to, e.g. it is a teaching day, then (rule 2) I will do it before I am allowed to turn my laptop off. This is going to require discipline, and I’m not sure if I’ll be successful, but I need to run the experiment to know and reassess whether I am accepting it, adjusting it – maybe lunch time writing works better or abandoning it – maybe it makes writing feel like too much of a chore.
You might wonder if my blogs are now going to pivot towards self-help or self-growth blogs.
In short, no.
I’m curious about implementation, change, culture, sensemaking, cross-silo teamwork, especially in high-pressure, high-stakes environments like emergency medicine, critical care and out of hospital care. These interests build on the PhD work – that considered sensemaking in emergency departments in Cape Town.
Looking forward to connecting, having conversations, and possibly collaborating!
I used to blog at https://chacunningham.wordpress.com/ but in future my blogs will be hosted at a new page, and please follow me on https://www.cunningham.web.za/
Read more:
About Pennebaker at
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/psychology/faculty/pennebak
Books mentioned:
James Clear, Atomic Habits.
Oliver Burkman, 4000 weeks.
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/books
Shane Parish
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