Compared to how bad I felt the previous week, this one was better. Key was that thankfully my colleagues stepped in and took a lot of work from my plate. I’m the only one in my company with a young child at home due to the school closures, which cuts my work availability in half (I work mornings, E works afternoons). Reducing my work load allows me to focus on a single large project that is just starting, and take a secondary role in another new project where I bring key parts of expertise. Other projects I can hand over in full for the time being. That created a sense of relief all by itself.

It doesn’t mean I was back to my regular self or regular work rhythm, but it was better, and it was causing less problems.

This week I

  • Did the onboarding for a new project. I’m taking on the role of secretary of an intergovernmental group looking at how to best implement European data regulations, and how to best build on its opportunities or how to deal with its drawbacks.
  • Contacted some first people to plan meetings with for that new role
  • Bought myself a 2001 Keith Haring (estate licensed) chess set on Monday, and received it on Saturday
  • Discussed with colleague F how to best hand over my various work activities and to which colleague
  • My old laptop came back with a new battery on Monday, allowing me to prepare for the move to a new laptop, and give E’s Mac I had on loan back to her
  • Received my new laptop and spent considerable time migrating the most important stuff. I can now fully work from the new set-up. That should also reduce quite a bit of friction in my workflow that I had in the past weeks (due to working on a borrowed laptop)
  • Had a weekly project call with a province (to be handed over next week)
  • Had the weekly project call for the Citizen Science project w.r.t. air quality in Rotterdam
  • Finally read some more of the short Future Ethics book I’m reading, as well as reading fiction in the evening.

I’m heading into next week with more confidence that I’ll be able to get some actual work done