"Can you deliver a presentation on What Is Therapy? for Mental Health Awareness Week?" I was asked in an email recently. I sent back a reply, "Sure, that's no problem." What could be simpler than a therapist writing about what therapy is? When it came to it though, it was tougher than … [Read more...] about The Observer Effect
Productivity
The Virtue Of Avoiding Productivity
When my father died amongst his possessions was a big claret-coloured notebook. He'd bought it to catalogue his vast record collection, a task that sat on his metaphorical "to-do" list for decades He had never written in it, and now he was dead. The paper was a smoothly satisfying alluring … [Read more...] about The Virtue Of Avoiding Productivity
Down Time
In "How To Do Nothing," Jenny Odell recalls a performance piece by Finnish artist Pilvi Takala which involved her posing as a marketing trainee at accounting firm Deloitte and doing nothing but sitting at her desk and staring out of the window. None of her "colleagues" knew it was art and became … [Read more...] about Down Time
The Futility Of Time Management
I'm in supervision having a familiar conversation. "I've taken on too much work." My supervisor smiles but says nothing. I spend the next minute or so explaining what I've done, how I had planned to say no to a new project but, in the final shake-up, found it too interesting to reject. I … [Read more...] about The Futility Of Time Management
A Garden Of Riches
A couple of years ago I was telling my son about an idea I'd had. "I think I'm going to start an Airbnb for gardens." "What do you mean?", he said. "People who don't have gardens could rent space from people who do but can't be bothered to garden them." He pushes out his bottom lip and … [Read more...] about A Garden Of Riches