CPD23 Things 2012: Thing 5 - Reflective Practice

I'm jumping from Thing 1 to Thing 5 because I've just been for my weekly 20 mins of reflective practice. I practice the art of reflection once a week on a Friday morning when I go for what colleague Bruce calls my 'Lorry Driver's Breakfast': hashbrowns, fried egg, beans. This nutritious breakfast of fat, iron and protein (and all for £2.05), allows for a 10am-ish break, and a chance to reflect on my week so far, the weekend to come, and the week ahead.

This morning, for example, I reflected that I really do have a lot on at the moment, both in my work world and home world. I am in a constant Planning mode, ready for Doing, and need to Review my planning and doing to remind myself of my priorities in life. I have been Planning an article for Libraries for Nursing for months now. I need to actually DO and write the 1500 words to send to colleagues to check, and then on to the editor in the next week. Why have I been putting off the DOING stage of this activity? Well, I prioritise lit searching for readers, holding 1-1s with readers, management activities and anything to do with my day job over writing an article about the Sobell search clinic pilot for LfN. This is counteractive. I must just write the article, instead of worrying about not writing it, and putting it off in favour of other things. Ditto my evaluative statement for my Chartership portfolio. The LfN article now takes priority over the statement, because the deadline for the former is more imminent than for the latter. Both pieces of writing MUST .. be written .. in the next fortnight.

I was reflecting over my breakfast this morning that maybe I should just take the paperwork for both documents home over the Long Bank Holiday Weekend, and use the time given to the nation by the Queen to write, and feel better about myself as a Librarian, Chartership Candidate, and as a Citizen!

All the Planning in the world won't help if I don't DO... and then have something to Review.

Reflecting has been really useful this morning for my management role. I saw in our calendar that a colleague was due to go for an appointment next week at 2pm, and was expecting to then trek back into work for the evening desk duty. I am booked to attend the CILIP in the Thames Valley session at a pub in Oxford for 6.30 on the same day, so it makes more sense for the colleague to take the afternoon off as leave, and for me to stay here and get on with things, and go home via the CILIP meeting! Logic! Colleague is happy with the arrangement, morale is high, things are more logical this way, and I think this is an example of Good Management Practice. AND I'll be at work for a bit longer that day next week so can use the time to REVIEW the two documents that i will have written on the bank holidays! (I'm an Optimist today).

Thank you, CPD23 Things 2012, for reminding me to reflect:
http://cpd23.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/thing-5-reflective-practice.html