Week Notes 05
26 June — 30 July
Key Headlines
R & R: Week notes for last week are coming a bit late due to annual leave last week and a super busy weekend!
The beginning of last week was dedicates to a bit of rest and relaxation at Aqua Sana Spa, Centre Parcs for me and my husband.
Our lives seem to be running at 200 mph constantly theses days and I think we both got to a point where we needed a mental break, some time away from phone, emails, work (the kids 😂) and the daily grind. And you know what, it was bloody good for the soul!
We managed to talk, one on one, for hours … no phones pinging, no kids pulling on your arm or throwing a tantrum and no mind wandering down a mental work to do list. We talked about life and where we needed to make healthier changes to avoid more frequent burn outs and refocused some of our life goals. I could have stayed there for a week!
I can honestly say, I needed it. I urge anyone feeling like the mental load is getting a bit too heavy to just take some time out. Go for a walk, sit in silence with a book, visit a spa .. whatever floats your boat. The important thing is take some time for you!
Strategy & Planning: Wednesdays return to work saw a trip to Unity Square where myself, Helen & Paul had a really great day in the office, working through a long list of thing we need to understand and define for our team.
One of the big talking points was the onboarding of new starters; anyone who’s read my week notes recently will know that we’ve had a huge recruitment drive recently for Senior Service Designers and Senior User Researchers (Service Design Campaign is live again here if you’re interested!) and this is going to over double the size of our team. It’s really, really exciting and it’s prompted us to think about how our team meeting structure might change and what we need to do to give them a great onboarding experience, given we have a scattering of locations.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this takes shape over the next couple of months.
My personal highlight of the day was Hot Wok in Nottingham finally re-opening, allowing me and Helen to continue our Noodle Tour of Notts! 🍜
Digital Art Update: I’ve started to play about with textures and shading in Procreate which has been super fun! My personal gallery is now expanding with different pieces I’ve created and I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made and am continuing to make!
I’m still trying to get my head around masks, clipping masks and alpha lock though … why is it so hard to remember which one is used for what and when to use them! 🤦♀️
Another great Youtube tutorial resulted in the below yesterday:
Other highlights include coffee with an ex-colleague and friend which was amazing and reminded me of some of the great friendships I’ve made at work.
Friday off to look after my littlest monster was fun, adventurous, exhausting and reminded me how much I love work 🤣🤣🤣
I’m already day 2 in to this week so I’ll shut up here and see you in my next Week Notes where I’ve got another office day to look forward too, a workshop on our survey strategy and a first mentoring session with a wonderfully talented Service Designer at HMRC who I’ve just started to mentor.
Have a wonderful week!
Nik ❤
