Weeknote: S2, Ep14: Mini edition featuring Monday morning, people-centred policies and confidence journeys.

Monday

Investing an hour on a Monday getting my priorities straight for the week is always time well spent. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this. Love because it improves my focus and forces me (in a good way) to decide where to put my finite supply of energy. Hate because “busy work” is weirdly addictive. It’s a quick fix sugar high. It’s not unproductive but it’s frequently a distraction. The Monday rhythm of attempting to plan my focus is harder for sure. No instant high, more like the endorphin high after a run. I notice that the excuses I make to avoid going for a run are not dissimilar to the things I tell myself on a Monday morning when I sit down to look at my Trello board.

Tuesday

It was great to have a Teams call with Matt on Tuesday afternoon. We caught up on his work to renew our digital policies. Policies are about people and behaviours and Matt’s user-centred approach starts with capturing needs. In the same vein, Matt’s thinking about how to communicate the policies once written down is bringing together expertise from our comms team and content designers. We know that policy documents in and of themselves don’t meet people’s needs or prompt behaviour change — we need to do this in different ways.

Wednesday

Six women from the digital and customer services teams are going to take part in the next UPFRONT bond.* It’s a six week course exploring confidence and professional visibility. They are joining a world-wide community of women and non-binary folk re-shaping their ideas about themselves, re-drawing their work cultures and ultimately re-wiring society to be more inclusive.

*Here’s some of the women from Greenwich and Lambeth Councils talking about their experience of being part of UPFRONT.