šŸ§ A few things from 2019.

So, 2019 went quickly! Hereā€™s a little round up of some of the key things Iā€™ve learnt this year.

šŸ” Working from home

Underrated in so many ways. This year was the first time Iā€™d worked from home regularly in a role, and itā€™s something Iā€™d really encourage everyone to do more where they can. I had to learn how to balance my time right, and make sure that I managed to find a good separation between working at home and being at home.

I have a good balance now of time spent in the office (usually around 2 days a week), and the other 3 from home. Iā€™ve actually learnt that I perform better by being able to fully remove myself from the distractions that come with an open office environment, and really focus in on something when I need to.Ā 

šŸš† Commuting

Iā€™ve learnt to make the most out of my commuting time this year. It takes me around 3 hours each way to commute in to the office, of which I can get about 1.5 hours of actual working time in (when Iā€™m not waiting for connecting trains or the tube). Iā€™ve become really disciplined with how I use this time to focus on things that Iā€™d usually deprioritise if I was stretched for time; things like reading, tidying up and organising my diary and to-do lists, and watching those talks that I never get round to šŸ˜›. Using the time here to do those things relieves the pressure on my time elsewhere.

šŸ¤øā€ā™‚ļø Flexibility is important

I donā€™t think Iā€™d take another role where I couldnā€™t (mostly) set my own schedule and work to it. Iā€™ve learnt how important this flexibility is to me this year, and I consciously try to always make sure my team know that theyā€™re free to work in a way that works best for them and for the company. If Iā€™m up early one day and feel like I want to start work at 7:30 (knowing that Iā€™ll be at my most productive if I do), then itā€™s great to know I can do that; likewise if Iā€™m not feeling at my best one day and want to juggle my working hours around.

šŸŽ¤ Public speaking

Itā€™s not so bad(!). I did my first public speaking gigs this year and on the whole, I really enjoyed them. I learnt that being well prepared is really important, and Iā€™m looking forward to taking up more opportunities to speak some more next year. If youā€™ve not read it yet, check out my post on the learning from incidents talk I did this yearšŸ˜„

šŸ§ Mental health and wellbeing

Iā€™ve learnt so much this year about mental health, and itā€™s largely due to Monzoā€™s commitment to making talking about it a part of everyday life. Iā€™ve learnt that our physical and mental health are linked, and Iā€™ve also learnt that everyone is affected by it in some way. Reducing the stigma about talking about mental health is something Iā€™m committed to keep working on in the future, and Iā€™m really interested to keep on learning next year.

šŸ—£ļøLanguage

Iā€™ve always been interested in the power of language, but this year Iā€™ve had my eyes opened even more to the impact the words you use can have on people. Something Iā€™ve become much more aware of are microaggresions. Iā€™ve learnt that because microaggressions are often so subtle, itā€™s hard to know sometimes that youā€™re even using them. I used to refer to groups of people as ā€˜guysā€™ all of the time until I learnt that, actually, that term can make some people feel excluded. There are a few other terms that Iā€™ve tuned in to recently that Iā€™m trying to be more considerate of using like ā€˜crazyā€™ or ā€˜madā€™, and using ā€˜distributed workingā€™ instead of ā€˜remote workingā€™. All of these subtle changes in language can go a long way to making people feel included, which until this year, Iā€™d been unaware of in the past.

šŸ“Writing

Writing is easier and more enjoyable than I thought it would be! I started my blog up in August with a goal of writing one post per month for the rest of the year, which Iā€™m really happy that Iā€™ve achieved. Iā€™ve found that once I get going with a rough idea of what Iā€™d like to write about, these posts pull themselves together pretty quickly. Iā€™m not short of ideas of things to write about, so Iā€™m hoping to keep this up next year too šŸ–Šļø

Hereā€™s to another year of learning in 2020! šŸ™Œ