Sometimes my calendar looks like an LA freeway: 100% utilization, ultimate deadlock.
This is not one of those times. November through January are quiet at my current job, no big launches or deadlines. I can take a breath.
My instinct is to fill it. Sign up for more! Commitments! Deadlines! Quick, pull in the next ticket while we wait for this build to finish.
But no, this is a different time. While the build runs, let’s add that test or remove this deprecated method. With fewer meetings, I’ll document these processes finally. Plan consciously for next year. I’ll read more conversations on slack. I’ll listen to what’s going on in the company.
In traffic, the cars only flow when there is space between them. Uneven space, as some are slower than others. It is these gaps that let anyone merge, change lanes, make progress.
Calendars are like this too. In the gaps, I get to think, notice what is helping, and check off some of those action items that I acquired during the meetings.
When coding, these gaps are: waiting for a build or deploy, waiting for someone to look at my PR, or that last hour of the day. Leave that next ticket in the queue, please. Let’s finish that refactor, remove that deprecated method, add that test we skipped earlier. Bump a library version.
While I have the option, I’m not going to stretch myself thin. Instead I’m going to fill in undergrowth, store up fat, add to my capacity to flex.
Nora Bateson calls this “ready-ing for change.” She quotes Gregory Bateson:
Social flexibility is a resource as precious as oil or titanium and must be budgeted in appropriates, to be spent (like fat) upon needed change.
The development we need to cope with changing needs, both in our people and in the wider system, happens in the space between all these tasks we know we need to do. Bateson uses the phrase “enabling gaps.”
The long-enough spaces between cars are enabling gaps. The breaks in my calendar are enabling gaps. They’re time to do the “everything else” that isn’t enumerated in my job description. Help people who have questions, write the post that’s inspiring me right now. This is how we learn and grow as a system, how we do more than can be expected of us.
That’s what I’m doing this season, ready-ing for change. Holding space for whatever exciting thing comes in the Spring.