How having NOTHING to do made us suddenly very creative

Our Covid19 Diary: Week 4

Monday 6th April

I normally look on the bright side. I'm a "glass half full" sort of gal. Until I'm not. And Monday was definitely a low point. I had nothing to do (work-wise that is - there was ironing, cooking, dusting, cleaning a-plenty). Not only that, I could see no prospect of ever having any work to do again.

Law firms have a freeze on hiring, all discretionary spend is banned and, frankly, with the economy the way it is, there is no prospect of us having any paid work to do ever again. With nothing to do, I was bored and mightily pissed off.

Tuesday 7th

I know, intuitively, (and because I've read plenty of books about it) that for new ideas to enter your brain, it helps if it's empty. How many times have I found myself walking the dog, thinking about nothing, only to find a zinging idea insert itself into my mind. So I should have known that having nothing to do could turn out to have some benefits.

At the same time, I'm an extrovert (in the Myers Briggs sense) and thrive on working with other people, kicking ideas around, starting conversations just to see where they will lead. So I was thrilled to be having our regular Tuesday zoom call with the rest of the Reignite team. Even though we had no work, nothing to do and no ideas to speak of.

With no pressure to take any decisions, produce any work or make any grand plans, we just engaged in some good old dialogue. We asked some questions. What problem are we trying to solve? Does anyone really want that problem solving? What could we do that would be useful to people right now? How do we keep in contact with people? How do we remain relevant?

And then it happened. Tanja came up with an idea, Sharon built on it, Melinda asked a question that led to another idea and suddenly we had a plan. And work to do!

The rest of the week

We got busy. I pulled together the training curriculum that's been work in progress for the last fifteen months and we designed a ten week programme of bite sized training modules that we can deliver, over Zoom to our contact base, beginning with "How to use LinkedIn to Build your Personal Brand" next week.

Freed from our old assumptions about training (it has to be delivered in person, we need a room, it has to be funded, we need to go through L&D to secure budget ...) we were able to create ten topics that we believe will be useful.

We have reframed the next ten weeks. It's not ten weeks of "lockdown" where we press pause on our business model, cross our fingers and hope for the best. No. It's ten weeks to innovate, incubate, test, model, remodel, our training and development offer. Can you imagine being lucky enough to suddenly have the opportunity to press pause on your business whilst you test some new ideas.?

More alarmingly, we also began to realise that this could open up new avenues for us. The Reignite Academy began in London and focused purely on law firms. There were several good reasons for this (not least the fact that I live three tube stops from the City of London so the commute is nice & easy) but that was in the old world.

Why limit ourselves to private practice? Why lawyers? Why London? What if ... What about .... Just imagine ....

We end the week with a Friday Zoom session and let me just say that far from being bored, we're actually quite excited to see what we could produce over the next ten weeks. I'm sure there will be ups and downs, mistakes and false starts but, hey, we're having a go.

For now, though, it's the Easter Weekend and I'm off back to the serious business of doing nothing. Who knows what will happen. I'll leave you with this quote from Eckhart Tolle:

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not 'yours,' not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.