Transitional periods are a mix of both letting go of the old and experimenting with the new. Relationships, habits, patterns, behaviours, identities, ideas… It is not simply the case that a transition is a clean switch between two known states, the before and the after. Usually the after can’t be known. It arrives after a […]
There’s a phenomenon when you take a new journey whereby the journey out seems to take forever compared to the homeward leg. It seems to be true however you’re travelling, so long as the route home is the same as the route out. I remember as a kid being surprised how quickly we seemed to […]
The challenges of working productively from home are especially acute during Covid19. What might we do to enable us to work more effectively? What is working from home doing for our own well-being and productivity? Let’s start with some of the challenges. It’s tough to follow my mantra of curating your workspace to suit the […]
The promise of going paperless is one I’ve been chasing one the last three years, digitising much of my world and opting out of being sent bills and correspondence in hard copy for environmental reasons as well as an attempt to simplify my life. I’ve scanned, recycled. Yet paperless is not synonymous with simple, uncluttered […]
I’ve been exploring the idea that change becomes more likely in times when certain conditions or factors align, whether by design or accident. Working with Mary Douglas’ Cultural theory, my hypothesis is that they do so across the different domains of the individual, and their motivation and agency to act; the collective, and the social […]
Campaigns to get us more fit and healthy are the norm these days – it can feel like there is barely a month without one. Did you make it to the end of Stoptober without a cigarette? Or manage to Go Sober for October? Time to start with a confession: I often get home tired […]
Arriving at Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof the first thing you realise it that it really is a thing of beauty. Designed and opened in time for the 2006 soccer world cup it is a gleaming multi-layered intersection of shops, escalators, lifts and platforms. Lots of platforms. Some for trains, of course, others for the S-Bahn, still more […]
When conditions are stable it is easier to spot an irregularity. A regular heartbeat suddenly shows an arrhythmia, a heathy person develops the ‘flu, freely flowing traffic backs up into a jam, someone’s hitherto stable behaviour starts to show peaks of seemingly irrational action. Is it easy to spot these when you don’t have a […]
Multitasking is a myth – handling interruptions at work actually requires rapid task-switching, which can bear a cost to our health. “Choice of attention – to pay attention to this and ignore that – is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for […]
In 2016 the voice of those feeling socially disenfranchised and economically side-lined was heard. Even if you consider the fact that others might hold a diametrically opposed view to you, it can be difficult to understand why they might do so. Understanding why requires a different perspective, looking at the world through new eyes, imagining […]
Five million people had to find alternative ways of getting around London yesterday. I for one was ill-prepared to cope with my first tube strike. But what if everyone was prepared to see the opportunity in the chaos? How might we collectively take advantage of this moment in time when the patterns of behaviour of […]
At the end of 2015 I left work with no clear next step. I knew it was time to take a chance in life and figure out what inspired me to give my best contributions to the world. A year later I’ve enjoyed my sabbatical, finished my Masters degree at LSE, sold my house and […]
Ian Burbidge 