A good life is a life that has meaning. Similarly, a good career has meaning, a purpose and a goal, and, strong principles.

A simple exercise to see if our life is being lived with meaning, is to imagine our own obituary. What would we be remembered for? Hopefully not being the one who was always negative or never had anything nice to say.

With our careers, we also want to think about what impact we’re leaving behind. At our retirement parties (if anyone is having real retirement parties anymore), what are we being remembered for? Hopefully, something with meaning.

Welcome back. You’re welcome. A welcome mat. All of these uses of ‘welcome’: they all make me feel good. Even the recent inclusion of welcomes to country, while sometimes awkward, do have the intention of making good. So: where there’s welcome, there’s goodness.

What’s the opposite of welcome? I had to look that up. There were several unappealing, unpleasant, and nasty words, but a direct opposite is simply, unwelcome.

When we’re unwelcome, we don’t feel good.

The #100words point is, if you’re looking for goodness, look for where you’re welcomed. Be it work, socialising, or shopping. Stay where you’re welcomed.

Through all my life including all the years in the endurance event game, I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve certainly had a plethora of pulled muscles and twisted tendons, but never a break. All those kilometres cycling and running, and no bone breaks. It’s not good to break bones.

But there are good types of breaks. Like the one I’ll be taking for the next month or so. There are too many holidays, and too many visiting family members in life, for the next month, to properly attend to 100 words about something or other. I’ll be back in mid-May.

For almost three years, I’ve posted one hundred words each day except Saturdays. (And, there have been some month-long breaks as well). Precisely one hundred words. Each one is written on the day posted (except, I’ve repeated some recently). Each day, a fresh idea, condensed into 100 words, no more, no less.

I like the rhythm of the daily task, but it’s time to take the pressure off. I’ll still write “100 words about” something, and probably every day, but it won’t be “100 words a day”. You’ll hardly notice the change, but for me, the pressure will be off.

When we are using someone else’s ideas in our writing or presenting our own ideas, it’s not right to claim it as our own. Plagiarism is the ultimate poor form: direct copy of someone else’s work is never okay.

Yet here, a few of my recent posts, have not been original; they have been copies of my own work from previous years. So, some posts in the past week have been copies. Only five, mind you. But, funny enough, I kind of feel guilty not attributing the ‘repeat’, of my own work. Weird, as it’s my own work I’ve copied.

In three years of writing 100 words about all sorts of topics, almost 700 posts to date, it’s remarkable that I’d not yet had one titled “book”. I’ve written about textbooks, and notebooks, but not plain ole books.

It’s nice to observe that books have not had the demise that many feared when electronic writing and communication became the norm. There are still bookstores, there are still public libraries, and there are still plenty of books being published.

You’d think we’d run out of things to write about, but no, here we are. Plenty of books, and plenty of words.

A capitalism system that works is based on the exchange of money for something of value. Customers decide if the perceived value is greater than the asking price, and if so, they’ll feel like they’ve got a ‘deal’.

The tricky part is, though, different customers will value different things, even at different times and in different situations. Pinning down value is more psychologically complicated than just price equals value.

Value can be found in functional improvements, emotional resolutions, or life-changing outcomes. But maybe that’s all a bit highbrow. Customers just want to know they’ve received value, whatever that looks like.

Anyone who has participated in knowledge transfer events (aka, training) has, I postulate, been bored during least one of them.

Whether in person, or online, it’s easier to be unengaged than engaged. Especially if the topic is not immediately relevant.

There’s a skill and a talent to being able to teach or train others. And nowadays, there’s an additional skill to be able to do it online, via looking into a camera.

Whether receiving or delivering it, training, knowledge transfer, teaching or whatever we want to call it, is an important part of working life, and key to lifelong learning.

In the construction workspace, safety inductions for the workers are legislated, expected, tolerated, and, simply, done. You wouldn’t (can’t) start a construction project without an induction.

Besides being legally required, and also potentially tedious and repetitive, there are still benefits to safety inductions: they can set behaviour expectations and introduce site specific hazard identification.

For office-based knowledge workers, perhaps there is opportunity for an induction approach to quality of work. A “permit to work” system for those who produce the pictures and words. A “knowledge induction” that presents design knowledge expectations, scope limits, and company or project specific technical hazards.

It’s hard for a credentialed person to say, “I don’t know”. Many years ago, a co-worker asked if I could help him design his concrete garage flooring. It was really hard to admit, “I don’t know how to do that anymore” – because, doesn’t every civil engineer know that? Alas, not this one.

With a credential that points to expected knowledge, it’s even harder to say. And so, there’s a choice: admit it (‘I don’t know’), or, go figure it out. That’s ok too, in some circumstances, especially if you want to learn. But it should start with “I don’t know”.

I’ve just watched an episode of ABC’s “A Dog’s World” series. Putting aside the obvious about how dogs make people happy etc, the bit about eye contact was a new insight. Surprising to me was that the physiological ability to use ‘puppy-dog eyes’ was a factor in the adoption rate of shelter dogs.

It’s a long bow, but I connect that to the difficulties many have had during the pandemic, without a variety of opportunities for human eye contact. For two years, mostly just family, and dogs.

Let’s not underestimate the importance of actual eye contact with our fellow humans.

If competence is a combination of knowledge, skills, and experience, then the direct opposite means being inexperienced, unskilled, and/or uninformed. Though, there’s a scale for competence levels.

Looking at competence from the opposite side provides an alternative perspective, and perhaps some clues of what to do about it.

If knowledge is needed, there are books or courses or Google rabbit-holes to explore. If skills are needed, repetitive action on a task will develop that. And if experience is missing, then get out there and do things. Experience is crucial to showing competence, and with no activity, there is no experience.

Which comes first: do habits develop into a sustainable workflow, or, do we fall into workflow patterns that then become habits?

Habits can protect us from decision fatigue. Habits help by just being a given, so there’s no decision, such as whether to have coffee or tea in the morning.

Habits are also known for providing “freedom in routine”. Performing the same actions in the same context or location or decision point means that there really isn’t a decision, there’s no emotion, it’s automatic and situational.

Repetitive workflows, or habits, are recognisable patterns. Our brains function better in recognisable environments.

The word ‘comparisonitis’ hasn’t yet made the dictionary, and isn’t yet a recognised medical affliction, but it seems to be a thing.

It’s the negative feeling that rises while scrolling social media, with all its glamour and announced successes.

I think the way to avoid comparisonitis, and to healthily observe others’ successes, is to do it from a position of strength. To know that while they are doing great things, so are you, in your own way.

Do something each day that makes you proud. Then you’re comparing yourself from a position of strength. Then you did good today, too.

A key part of business (in a capitalist environment, anyway) is to make a profit. Profit comes from money exchanging hands. Money exchanges hands because something with value has been produced.

When leading, a leader isn’t producing, they are motivating others, to produce that thing of value. The role of a leader is to lead others, motivate others, and inspire others.

Motivating, leading, and inspiring others is important, as long as those others are producing something of value, something someone else wants.

The world needs all types, and so does a business.

Businesses need leaders, but businesses need doers, too.

Multi-tasking is not effective in the knowledge work world. The effort needed to concentrate on one thing requires significant cognitive load. Concentrating on more than one thing is just about impossible. Both things suffer.

The other hidden cost is the time needed to switch between tasks. It is underestimated in the time management and productivity hacks. There is little recognition of the time needed between tasks.

The effort to switch banks, or to switch health insurance funds, perhaps doesn’t directly compare to switching between responding to emails, to knuckling down and writing a technical report. Not really, but maybe almost.

In the trying times of the past 24 months, I’ve given some attention to overall health, including exercise, sleep, and mental health in general. I’m aware of the benefits of ‘quiet time’ (some call it meditation, but I don’t), and also the benefits of a regular schedule and having boundaries on your time.

A new learning is about the positive effect of getting into daylight within 30 minutes of waking up. Our circadian rhythm benefits from that. As I listened to the podcast this morning, I learned that the lux (light) levels are sufficient even on a cloudy, rainy day.

There’s a collective cringe that occurs when the emailed request comes in: ‘please review and comment’.

Attached will be some long and probably tedious document, awaiting that review, with little further guidance provided. And there’s usually more than one person copied on the email as well. Technology may be improving on this, especially within companies (hello document sharing), but not so when multiple organisations are involved (i.e., committee work).

With multiple reviewers, and no clear guidance on ‘what’ is supposed to be reviewed, it’s a recipe for confusion.

There has to be a better way, and I’m looking for it.

As observed by Cal Newport in his book “Deep Work”, three groups will have a particular advantage in the future:

those with access to capital;

those who can work creatively with intelligent machines; and,

those who are best at what they do.

So: if you are born into or come into money, or, if you are comfortable with the influx of machines and AI, you will be okay.

Otherwise, and perhaps more satisfying, is to be very good at what you do, and, able to communicate it. Being able to learn new and complex things very quickly will help too.

Technical skills rely on knowledge and insight; often using math. They are context and industry specific. Having expert technical skills across a multitude of scenarios is unlikely and unusual, because excellent technical skills are context specific.

Behavioural skills rely on emotional awareness. We can’t ignore it: human behaviour involves emotions. Just like you can’t have an experience without emotion, you can’t behave without emotion.

Behavioural skills are more easily transferred between contexts and roles. Being professional, kind, considerate, and honest is the same in any situation. Doing project specific calculations for a variety of assets needs more conscientious switching effort.