Recently I’ve become acutely aware that I can be somewhat of a negative grump. Now I have excuses for the last 2 months – I’ve been poorly, and am currently smashing down a new set of drugs that have so many side effects it’s laughable (it’s worth knowing that the accompanying leaflet suggests that I could become either “hysterically energetic and happy” or “suicidal” – No middle ground on that one then).
But back to the point.
What I’m talking about is being a bit down on achievement and ability. My amazing other half has started a grateful diary – essentially, every night, before you go to sleep, you write down what you’re grateful for – major and minor, funny and serious – one of them included the fact that when I get into bed I lie on her side first so it’s warm when she gets in. I know, a hero.
It’s a good thing I think – it reminds us amid the creeping negativity, the stress and the torrent of news flung at us, that we are lucky, and there is good in the world. An bed warming heroes.
I use evernote to keep track of my daily to do list – essentially so that I can scroll thought things and work out what I need to do now and next. But very rarely do I look through at the things I’ve done – I spend so much time thinking “what next” (thank you The West Wing) that I rarely look at it. I think it may be a useful exercise – it’s good to remind yourself, every now and then, certainly not more than bi-annually, that you’re not fully incompetent.
So here’s the five that I’d forgotten about – that panicked me or stressed me, that I did and then instantly forgot. I hope it’s interesting and maybe you’ll look to see what yours are too.
- I worked with a brilliant illustrator Rosie Brooks (link to her) to make a sweet as pie image for a show called Llew a’r Crydd by the amazing Emyr John. Both were a delight to work with and I thought at the time how lovely it all was.
- We discovered that doing hyper localised, regionalised and slightly OTT comedy club facebook ads is really effective for driving people to join facebook events – sales for the comedy night have been up and I worked hard on making it better.
- The marketing team along with Sean Kerrins (link to him), a brilliant designer, redesigned the season brochure making it cheaper and better and the current season is going very well.
- The theatre is currently having the most successful classical music subscription season it ever has – in large part due to Anthony and Ambrose’s top programming, the stirling help of Stephen and Christina of TRG and me designing stuff that did, if I dare say it, persuade people to buy.
- I made a great Tableau (more here) data visualisation sheet for work (more here). I’m dead proud of it – it’s incredibly geeky but I spent my time on it and I’m glad.
P.S. Regular readers don’t despair, we’ll be back to misery and graphs next week. For those also wondering how the anxiety thing is going – much better in the last month or so – turns out that being physically ill is distracting – that said I’ve become preoccupied with dying from whatever webMD says is the worst thing each and every symptom could be – I may have scurvy and/or a pulmonary embolism – I need to get off the internet – so up and down really.