Finding Brain Space

As I’m writing this, my brain is doing its best impression of a browser with far too many tabs open.

I’m about to go away with my mum for some proper mum-daughter time and then, with only a morning change-over, head straight off on holiday with friends. Lovely problems to have! But there’s a fair bit of planning involved, as well as leaving work in an organised state for my brilliant colleagues (thank goodness for them!).

From the conversations I’ve been having recently, I know I’m not the only one whose “thinking work” is colliding with summer life admin.

The illusion of the quiet summer

Every year, someone says “it’ll be quieter over the summer” and every year most of us look at our calendars and laugh.

Colleagues are away. Clients often aren’t. Children are off school, relatives are visiting, trips need organising, people are covering for each other. The rhythm changes, but it doesn’t actually feel calmer.

On the surface, this time of year looks as though it should offer more space to think about what comes next, maybe dust off a few ideas you’ve been meaning to get to or sketch out what you want “back to school” in September to look like.

In reality, a lot of people I talk to feel like they have a busy brain and an empty tank. They are still needed to think, write, plan and decide, but they are doing it on a wobbly foundation of broken routines and extra demands.

If that feels familiar, you’re not alone.

A simple way to think about it

One way of looking at this (and yes, I am going to indulge myself with some alliteration!) is through the lens of three Bs:

• brain fuel

• brain friction

• brain fraud

(And side note - my home town is also famous for three different Bs: brewing, biscuits and bulbs so this alliteration has pedigree.)

Brain fuel

By brain fuel, I mean the things that actually help you think:

• enough sleep to string a sentence together

• a short walk

• a conversation that helps you see a situation differently

• 20 minutes with a notebook before you open your inbox

• reading something that stretches you a bit, rather than just filling a gap

Summer can offer more of this if we let it. Different routines, more daylight, the odd meeting that gets cancelled because someone is away. There is potential there for genuine rest and reflection.

Brain friction

Brain friction is all the stuff that makes thinking feel harder than it needs to be. Not dramatic, just a steady drain:

• the sixth Teams chat of the day that “won’t take long”

• trying to cover two colleagues at once

• half-made decisions that sit in the back of your mind

• to-do lists scattered across three different places because they are a mix of life and work

• travel logistics, childcare handovers, house sitters, all needing decisions

Individually, none of these is a disaster. Taken together, they create a kind of low-level hum that soaks up the energy you might have used for the work that actually benefits from your full brain.

Brain fraud

And then there is brain fraud, which I say with affection because I am not immune to it AT ALL.

Brain fraud is the activity that looks like serious thinking work but, if you are honest, is mostly shuffling.

Summer, with its odd pockets of time and interrupted days, is fertile ground for this. You are too tired for deep work, not tired enough to properly rest, so you hover somewhere in the middle. It feels better than doing nothing, but it doesn’t move you as far as it looks as though it might.

One small experiment for the summer

If any of this is resonating with you, here is a small experiment you might like to try between now and September.

Every so often, give yourself one protected thinking slot.

Here is one way to do it:

• Pick a time of day when your brain is usually at its best. For some people that is first thing, for others it is mid-morning or straight after a walk.

• Block out half an hour in your diary. Call it whatever you like. (I am fond of “September me will thank me for this”.)

• Choose one question for that slot. For example:

“What do I want ‘September me’ to have stopped doing?”

“What is one thing I could make less painful for myself or my team?”

“If I could only move one thing forward this summer, what would it be?”

For that half hour, treat it as thinking time, not admin time. No inbox ticking away in the background, no “just quickly” replying to things (I’m SOOO guilty of this when I’m not being intentional), no fiddling with slides. Just you, a notebook or document and the question you’ve chosen.

Sometimes you might come away with a clear decision or a small change you can make. At other times, it might simply be 30 minutes where your brain catches up with itself. I think both outcomes are worth it.

Looking ahead to September

When we get to September and everything ramps back up (because it ALWAYS does!), the version of you who has had even a handful of these small thinking slots will be in a different place from the version who has spent the summer purely reacting.

Future you is unlikely to care whether every email was answered within the hour or every slide looked immaculate (well, I mean, they might but that might be missing the point!). They are much more likely to be grateful that you made one or two decisions about what really matters and perhaps let go of one or two things that no longer work for you.

Good luck and whatever you are doing over the summer, I hope you have a fulfilling time!