Quiet…

Things seem a little quiet around here to me — do they seem a little
quiet to you?  Yeah.  Something to do with being busy in
meetings all day/evening every day for the last 10 days.  I think
it was a productive trip; I think the meetings moved stuff forward,
which is a win.  But there’s something about constant
concentration and trying to get the next meeting prepared even as the
last one is just ending that sucks the life out of you.

I don’t think it’s just a question of being tired (though big dinners,
nice wine, staying up till all hours and then getting up for 8am
meetings might have an impact
😉 ).    A positive spin is that level of engagement in the
activities simply pulls you in every direction and squeezes out every
bit of energy[*].  I always say, “better busy than bored”. 
But, here on Sunday evening, the meetings that ended Friday morning
seem like they were a month ago — as we transitioned into the
weekend’s meetings’ context around noon on Friday. 

Another way of looking at the “level of engagement” and intensity of
the meetings — intense flashbacks.  Last week’s meetings were in
a hotel where we’ve had 6 (of 30) week-long meeting sessions in the
last 10 years.  Yes, we’ve been there for 6 weeks, or 20% of our
meetings.  The flashbacks occured as I walked by meeting rooms and
could mentally replay intense discussions that had been undertaken in
many of them:  which BoF was held in which room, and what the key
objections had been (and who had them) — some of these from as long
ago as 2002, at least.

There’s also definitely an element of the impact of adrenaline (how
else to get through 12-14 hour days?  appart from 4 shots of
espresso in the morning, of course?).

But, for now, my immediate concern is how to stuff a queen-sized
flannel blanket into luggage as we head to an entirely different
context for the next week. 

[*]  It’s definitely some kind of reflection on the state of my
mind that this seems like a “positive spin” 🙂

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