This morning I lay in bed, tempted to forgo my Sunday morning exercise routine. Didn’t the weatherman say it was going to be 7 degrees or some ungodly temperature outside? Fifteen minutes later my hands were numbed by the cold only a few minutes into my 10 minute ride to the gym. People waited at the tram stops down Lygon St rugged up in coats and scarves on their way to who knows where; but as we glimpsed eye contact there is that knowing connection … we’re both up early on a beautiful cold Sunday morning while most other people are still in bed.

As I peddled against the freshness I marvelled at how I could be enjoying the experience when only 15 minutes before I couldn’t have imagined there would have been anything pleasant about having left the warmth of the covers behind.

Given what I have ahead of me this week, it was timely reminder that choosing an appropriate physical reality can drag my unwilling emotions and ultimately my thinking to where it needs to be. If I wait until I feel like it, I will be either resentful or ineffective or both.

Of course it’s not all that matters, but being intention about getting the physical stuff right does a lot to adjust our attitude. Even though my first inclination was to sit on the couch, choosing to sit in the winter sunshine on the back steps this afternoon helped me get in the mood to kick the soccer ball with Johanna. Ironing my shirts and making sure the shoes are shined ready for the corporate meetings helped get me in the right frame of mind for what will invade my world tomorrow.

My choice to get up early this morning was a good reminder that I do not need to be a victim of my feelings … adjusting the sensual inputs can make a real difference to how I feel and what I think.

She had not returned since she left after year 10 more than 20 years ago. A few years back, we took a week and did a return pilgrimage. Tulla was drizzly, cold and dark. Forlorn and desolate. The mountains surround it, covered in dense bush, the clouds hanging low, obscuring the tops. All the buildings in ‘old Tulla’ are temporary fibros, intended to serve the community for a few years. They are still there as homes and shops decades later. A young kid sits in a bus shelter playing games on his mobile phone in the late afternoon drizzle. What else is there to do. For me it was strange and eerie. For Maria it was familiar and even comforting.

Her old primary school in Strathgordon was the only one in Australia to have a covered playground to allow the kids to escape the rain. One famous time it rained for six weeks non stop.

Tonight I am thousands of kilometres away in Tabubil. The average rainfall here is 8.5 metres per year. As I sit here in a vacant lonely guest house, the sound of the downpour is loud and constant. As I drove around this morning I had this uneasy feeling of being in a strange yet familiar place … then it dawned on me … I could have been in Tulla. Dense forests cover the surrounding mountains and the clouds hang low.

I am working with a group of 35 people, from the newly formed Ok Tedi Fly River Development Program, PNG locals committed to delivering development programs to the people of the Western Province, especially those in the 152 villages along the Fly River who are affected by the mining operations at Ok Tedi. As we drove into the golf club for a workshop this morning, I glanced right up the valley and gasped as I saw what could be described as a massive gravel glacier snaking down the mountain. Ian, then walked me to a point where we could see through the trees to where the mountain has been systematically de-peaked over 30 years. I have not before had a sense of the earth being raped like I had this morning; the mountain range stands there, its dignity stripped away, the river dying at its feet.

Just when I thought it couldn’t rain any harder, the noise increases.

I wagged my Tuesday morning swim in favour of some family farewells. I had a city meeting to punctuate some tricky people issues in an organisation I am involved with then a discussion to plan for an upcoming Board meeting. Back to Roslin and the usual e-correspondence. It was cold in Melbourne today … I wore a woollen top for the first time this year … the grey drizzle was both miserable and enjoyable with the experience of changing seasons.

I sat in my exit row seat, looked up and landed eye contact with a bloke sporting a Carlton Football Club cap, worn backwards. “Did you go to the game yesterday?” I asked. His polite but indifferent face transformed as if he’d recognised a long lost friend. He pumped his fist and looked at the floor as if showing off his bicep … people were juggling their carry on bags between us so the words were few, but the shared emotion has palpable.

Maria and I had gone to the game expecting to witness a Carlton loss. Geelong’s 3^rd quarter last week was apparently as good a football as they have played in their recent years of dominance. That our fleet footed young guns beat them at their own running, play-on, risk taking game was heart warming to the faithful who are willing this young team to realise their promise ahead of time. I remember thinking midway through the 2^nd it was all about belief … psychology is a funny thing.

I took out my reading and got started before we had pushed back. I got to the last page just as we started out decent 3 hours later, my head swimming with the possibilities and challenges ahead of the organisation I am working with this week. While I was immersed in strategic planning I wished I had the time to engage the couple beside me in conversation who spent much of the trip north watching TED Talks on the bloke’s iPhone.

The phone call home after dumping my bags on the hotel room floor bought news from the regular hospital visit that is one of our children’s lot. The news was sobering. I wish I was home.

And now I am on the water front; spicy Indonesian noodles and a cold beer filling the gap after resisting the Jet Star fare. The night air is warm and the relaxed Japanese tourist language is undulating around me. The misty and cold Melbourne air a world way.

Sadness, regret, resolution. Celebration, concentration, anticipation. Helplessness, satisfaction, tiredness … what a day.

Now this is not a new thought, for years now people have been lamenting the double edged sword that is email. But let’s be honest, it is probably the single biggest reason why people fail to get to the important strategic stuff in a typical office environment. Why? Because we’ve facilitated a business culture where email has higher priority than most other discretionary activity.

Walk in, say g’day, grab a coffee, then check your email. One hour later ….

The issue of course is not that there is nothing of strategic value in your’s or my inbox, its all the other stuff that gets mixed in. So the answer is unfortunately not as simple as ‘don’t look at it’, although some people advocate that you shouldn’t open your email until late afternoon.

For me, if there is discretionary use of any time in the morning I usually do (check it). The discipline is simply about not getting distracted. The only way this works for me is to have determined before I look at my inbox what the deliverables for the morning are. We’re talking about email, but the same can probably be said for Facebook, Twitter, online newspapers or any other ‘go to’ places.

This is related to the ‘turning up’ thing because if my daughter sits down to do home work and opens Facebook, or I go to work and open my inbox, I can think I’m ‘busy’, when I’m actually not doing anything productive in the bigger perspective.

So, this is not so much an anti-email post as a pro-stick to the deliverables one.

Everyone will navigate their own way through the managing e-distractions. Good luck defining your path.

Over the last couple of days I have been thinking about the next level … pushing the principle of mobility even further. One of the observations I have made from across a variety of organisations, is that mediocrity and even slackness in performance is usually accompanied by an unconscious attitude that once I have turned up and am sitting at my desk, I am 80% of the way to doing my job.

But turning up does not contribute directly to delivery. Delivery, execution, high performance or whatever we want to call it, has to do with focussed and disciplined work that is aligned with strategic priorities. So if ‘turning up’ is irrelevant to delivery, why turn up at all? Seriously.

(Now, I’m aware that I am speaking from a professional services paradigm and that this will not apply to say retail or manufacturing. But that doesn’t mean those who can apply these ideas shouldn’t push the boundaries.)

Maybe it is time we changed our language, because as postmodernism has taught us, language not only describes but also creates reality. So let’s eliminate the phrase ‘going to work’. If we are clear about the items that we need to deliver on any given day, our perspective would better be about doing those things, rather than going to a place. The fact that I might be able to do those things more effectively if I am at a certain place is irrelevant … infact we might assume we could do them more effectively ‘at work’, but maybe we should rethink this.

So, I hereby announce that I am never going to go to work again – at least not in the sense that I will get up on a weekday morning and press play on a routine that has me dressing up and ‘going to work’ as if that in and of itself is of any value.

And there is another side to this musing … that I have learned from yurting. If turning up is replaced by delivering, then when I’ve delivered I can do something else. No, not even that is right … there are some things that I need to do to keep my soul and body energised. Planning the ‘pause points’ in my delivery routine and filling them with regenerative activity is the go, I reckon.

What is that supposed to mean? (I’ve just invented more consultant mumbo jumbo!!)

OK.

“Delivery routine” means the disciplined and focussed workday rhythm that says no to anything that will prevent me from delivering my strategic priorities. (assumes I know what they are!)

“Pause Points” means the breaks I plan in. This is absolutely necessary because most professional work can be all invasive and apparently never ending. There is always too much to do, so unless we plan breaks we will never stop.

“Regenerative” means life giving and sustainable. Just stopping work is not good enough. I need to fill the break with stuff that energises and refreshes. Different for everyone. Some people haven’t figured out what it is for them … they are in trouble.

Let’s never just turn up again.

But I have vivid memories, not long after arriving in this city, of standing 3 or 4 deep in a crowded little pizza shop called LaPorchettas wondering what the ordering system was. It was noisy and completely chaotic. A short bloke who was slapping his thick hands onto lumps of dough behind the counter glanced up and caught my eye amidst the chaos. “What do you want?” I shouted my order from behind the shoulder of someone in front of me. Rocky barely acknowledged me. I stood there for 15 or 20  minutes in the bustle, wondering if anyone was remotely aware of my order, let alone processing it. I was completely flabbergasted when my pizzas arrived.

It was the first of countless visits. The pizzas were good, and cheap. Really cheap. Back in those days you could get a large pizza for between $5 and $7 bucks. The first time I went to sit down in the restaurant (the shop next door had been bought now had some tables and chairs in) I went to the register to pay for the group I was with and the same short bloke was behind the register. I handed over my plastic; “Sorry mate, cash only.” There was a queue behind me, I was bone dry of notes or coins. As I was contemplating what to say, Rocky just said matter of fact, “Pay me next time,” and shifted his eyes to the person behind me.

In those days La Porchettas had a thing going where if you spent more than $20 in the restaurant, you got to spin a wheel. Every slot had a prize; a free pizza, bottle of (cheap) wine, a carrot, glass of water. In the 90s we were lucky to be part of a wonderful bunch of people who met at our place every Wednesday night to talk about life and spirituality. Before getting to our house in Brunswick, dinner was at Rocky’s. Most were students, so cheap food was the go. We could all eat for 4 or 5 dollars. We got to know a waitress called Di who always made sure we had plenty of the pizza dough bread for free. We shared Margherita and Hawaiian pizza. We thought we were kings when we had spun and won free wine the week before. Sometimes people lashed out and got entree cannelloni or penne al burro which was pasta tossed in plain butter. We laughed a lot about al burro pasta.

The place was plastered with photos of Rocky with famous and beautiful people. Imagine Brian Brown and Rocky with their arms around each other, Rocky with his thumb up. He was a racing fan, so photos of bikes and F1 cars were everywhere. Every inch of the walls seemed to have amateur photos of him and his friends playing and having a good time.

These days I don’t go there often, but a few months ago we all (the family) went down for a weekend pizza/pasta dinner. Rocky was still behind the counter of this shop (which has now annexed 3 or 4 shop fronts) and I think I read recently that he has franchised another 80 La Porchetta stores around Australia. They all have the trademark bustle although nothing comes even close to the first experience I had back in the mid 80s.

Yesterday, on his way to the Grand Prix, Rocky died in a motor cycle accident at the St Kilda junction. He was a ‘colourful’ character; lets say he was not known for compliance. In truth, he was not the kind of person I admire, but my experience of living in Melbourne has been enhanced via his vision.

And I am reminded again of the vulnerability of life. Every day is truly a gift.

It has been a rugged month. A number of circumstances have conspired to sap from me much of the enthusiasm and joy of life. In order to stay afloat, I have culled a lot of the non essential activity. This has included this blog. It is perhaps unfortunate that for me it is hard to reflect in this media when the going is tough.

A smattering of people have politely asked about my e-silence. Well, I’m back for now … but only briefly because tomorrow we shift modes again – back to yurting. We enjoyed blogging over summer here, and last night Maria got started again.

If you are inclined, you can share our yurting reflections over the next couple of weeks as we mix a slower pace infused with work. Now that I’ve ‘rebooted and enabled most features’, I look forward to talking here about some new projects I am doing when I’m back after Easter.

If you are interested, we will be blogging over the next couple of months on our yurting site; www.duthie.net.au

This blog will be on leave until I’m back in urban mode.

my breakfast view