Time On My Hands

With my plannned trip to Haiti not happening I found myself with an essentially blank schedule this week. I had pretty much complete freedom to fill it because when I did my planning for this quarer I assumed I would be away, so all the other projects were on track without any time right now spent on them. It was an intriguing thing to open Outlook and see so much empty space.

We did our first quarterly review of Catalyst and myself recently and it was clear more than ever that the heart of this endeavour is leadership. We want to be involved in people developing their ability to bring about meaningful change, not just by sending them some funds but also (moreso really) by helping them to lead effectively. One of the responsibilities, and privileges, I have is to spend some of my work hours consuming and processing the best leadership resources we can get our hands on and trying to understand how they can help others. I haven't done as much of that as I would have liked in the last couple months because of the demands of getting things underway.

So, I'm trying to use this week as catch up time. I've got several resources I'm trying to get through and a last minute invitation to the Maximum Impact conference this Friday to give me lots of food for thought. The idea is that if we're to offer any real value beyond finances to our partners and those I'll be mentoring, I have to be well versed in a variety of tools, perspectives, and ideas. That's fundamental to our strategy.

If this week is "found time" I want to use it where it will count most in the long run; not ticking a few minor items off my to do list, but building up the wisdom base that stands behind everything else we do.

(And in the interest of honesty, I'm also getting a little extra time in the sunshine and meeting some of my favourite people for lunches).