2023 here I come!

Are you ready for whatever 2023 can throw at you? I say, ‘2023 here I come!’ Don’t get me wrong - first few days back at work have been a massive shock to the system, there are still more questions than answers, and at least once this week I have been close to having to tell myself, ‘Fake it, until you make it, dude!’ What is it then that keeps me excited and ready to tackle the challenges ahead? I spent a little bit of time reflecting on what inspires me at a more fundamental level and how I want to be in 2023. Whenever I need help to get started or support to keep going, I go back to these inspirations.

I have ways found it helpful to scribble things down even if I never come back to my notes afterwards. It helps me process, distil and remember the content. A few years back I got into bullet journaling which gives a bit more structure to capturing information. I still consider myself a complete beginner. None of the artistic flourishes or fancy page layouts you see online, and definitely not sticking to it consistently enough for it to be really useful. Just my notes scribbled down in almost unreadable handwriting, a divider line here and there with an occasional highlight thrown in.

One bullet journaling ritual that I really enjoy, however, is to kick off a new year by busting out a fresh notebook and creating a new volume of my bullet journal. This usually involves setting up a few key ‘collections’ to create basic structure for organising content and transferring across any useful bits from the previous volume. The best part if this is looking back at the previous year, and transferring across some of the highlights - quotes, ideas, squiggles - to serve as an inspiration for the year ahead.

Last couple of years have been gravitating towards the same set of ideas that really resonate with me. It is still all about accountability, taking ownership, intentionality and preferring imperfect action over just talking about action. It is still about connecting the dots and making things easy and frictionless. This year it is also about writing things down and telling everyone about it!

One of my favourite quotes that I keep scribbling down on post-its and sticking on my monitor or the wall in front of my desk has many attributions. The earliest attribution according to my friend Google goes to Hillel, a Jewish scholar:

‘If not you, then who? If not now, when?’

There is a more modern and even more concise version in Rob Moore’s book Start Now. Get Perfect Later:

‘GOYA and JFDI!’

This also regularly finds its way onto my post-its. Slightly expanded, quoting from the book, this reads: “Get off your arse (ass) and just fuckin’ (frickin’) do it.”

While the above inspirations tell me what to do, they don’t provide much guidance around how to approach the action. As we all know, it is not necessarily be about working harder but looking at the ways of how to work smarter. The next inspiration is also an ageless classic, this time from Chinese philosopher Confucius:

‘Keep it simple and focus on what matters. Don`t let yourself be overwhelmed.’

To help me decide what this means on a day-to-day basis I go to Gary Keller’s The One Thing to borrow a focusing question. This helps me pick something that’s deliverable and will make the difference. If I’m lucky, I might iterate through this multiple times a day. Here it goes:

‘What’s the one thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?’

And yes, in the end it is all about connecting the dots, making it all easy and frictionless. This takes me to the opening scene of Season 5, Episode 10 of The Office (U.S.) where Oscar tries to explain to Michael what a surplus is and does a brilliant job of it :

‘Why don’t you explain it to me like I’m five?’

And just when Oscar has made it as simple as possible, he goes for connecting the dots:

‘We should spend this money on a new copier which we desperately need.’

I have already mentioned my last and most recent inspiration in my earlier post. This comes from a recent all hands meeting at work:

“If you’re doing a great job, then are you documenting it, and are you communicating it; if not, how do you expect anyone to know?”

I’m all fired up to write things down and tell everyone about it starting with this post. No, seriously, I’m challenging myself to write and share one piece of content every week. 🚀

What are your inspirations?