<commit_before>Reviewing my archive, I realized that I’d (unintentionally) written a mini-series on working, when I first started at CDS. (Back in May 2018, eep!!)

https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/35-working/
https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/37-working-together/
https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/41-historically-minded/ [less directly]
https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/44-working-remotely/

Well, the story continues.<commit_msg>draft for today (513 words)<commit_after>Reviewing my archive, I realize that I’d (unintentionally) written a mini-series on working, when I first started at the Canadian Digital Service (CDS). (Back in May 2018, whew!)

- [\#35: Working](https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/35-working/)
- [\#37: Working (together)](https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/37-working-together/)
- [\#44: Working (remotely)](https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/44-working-remotely/)

And, though not explicitly part of the series, [issue 41 spoke about taking an historical perspective on the records we product in the course of our work](https://lucascherkewski.com/hit-and-miss/41-historically-minded/).

Well, the story continues. This was my first full week back at CDS this year. (Last week, I took some time off to help deliver abandoned Christmas trees to a goat farm.)

It was a bit of a tough return, but predictably so. As I told a few friends at work, there’s never enough time off to recover from 2020. I’m fortunate that I was _able_ to take time off, including when I took an under-the-weather sick day this week—so many can’t, forced to work to survive without protected time off, crushing workers and no doubt exacerbating already dangerous levels of COVID spread.

This return is also to full-time work after a stint of part-time, which’d facilitated a necessary work/life balance. In some ways, that shift is glorious! My calendar, it’s an open canvas into which to slot interesting conversations and working sessions and dedicated heads-down time! But also, whew, can it ever be _exhausting_ to fill that time. I’m grateful, too, for the colleague who gently reminded me this week that it’s _totally normal_ to take a while to get your sea legs back, that it’ll come with time.

---

This return has me thinking a bit more critically about how I focus my attention, carving out certain days to work on certain projects and aggressively blocking out heads-down time.

To that end, I’ve also extended my time tracking system to categorize each chunk of tracked work time. Blocks are either heads-down or a meeting, and meetings are small (1:1), medium (2–10ish), or large (enough people that I would feel no pressure to turn my camera on).

I’ll pull the data and take a look in a few weeks time, seeing how the “time type” breaks down by my different projects. But as with much routine data collection, the simple act of recording it has me paying more attention to how I schedule my days, proactively seeking longer chunks of heads-down time where previously I might’ve let my calendar fill up willy-nilly. [Matt Jukes linked to some pieces on remote working cultures](https://digitalbydefault.com/2021/01/08/s01e01-reboot/) that have me thinking about ways of working to better facilitate that, too.

---

A few links I noted in the last few weeks:

- [2020 Game](https://2020game.io/)—some good chuckles, but also a good reminder of what last year threw around. Whew.
- “[Dutch government resigns over child welfare scandal](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-dutch-government-reportedly-resigns-over-its-mismanagement-of-child/)”—living in a country where the notion of political responsibility is, uh, weak at best, this was a refreshing account of another possible world.
- “[Givers and takers](https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/givers-and-takers)”—<NAME> excerpts and reflects on some key definitions from <NAME>’s _Down Girl_, on misogyny.

Okay, that’s it for me today. All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas
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