This Philosopher-in-Residence, it won’t surprise you, is usually rather fond of planning ahead. What happens when one encounters a bump in the proverbial road, however?

When planning out the retro titles for this current Nostalgia blog series, On Albion seemed to be a great topic: appealing to fans of history, languages, the good old days, Babyshambles – what could go wrong?

And then, I inadvertently smashed my head into a wall socket, gave myself concussion and have spent the ensuing weeks in a sufferfest of forgetting things and struggling to keep up. Imagine how embarrassed I was when a question on the regular pub quiz I attend was “what did the Romans call England?” and instead of triumphantly writing “Albion”, I limped to a hope-for-the-best-guess at “Mercia” (which was a mediaeval district of England in Anglo-Saxon times).

And, although I was mighty disappointed in myself, this leads on to one of the points I wanted to underline in the Nostalgia series: sometimes, it’s just too much for your brain to be hankering for the old days.

Several professions bill their time by the hour, or even minute blocks. If you had to bill your day into blocks of past, present and future – what would the skew be? It’s lovely to enjoy memories and reminisce, and it can be exciting to think of future events. But: you do only get one present, and I’d wager that many of us spend a lot of time being sad about times passed, and anxious about the future yet to come. Does that leave much time for today, and glorying in the fact that you are alive in this moment?

I wouldn’t recommend knocking yourself on the head, but I would recommend taking stock of whether you’re spending enough time focusing on what can be done, and living in the here and now. I want to hear your thoughts on this one!

Next fortnight I’ll be writing On Celts, for the final Nostalgia series upshot – all identities welcome! Please get in touch with any particular aspects of this subject you’d like me to write about.

In the meantime,

Happy Planning

PS If you want some other free tips for your business life, check out the Working Well blog – out fortnightly on Wednesdays, courtesy of Make Me A Plan’s Productivity Expert, Pen Le Kelly. Browse the latest edition here:

https://www.makemeaplan.com/news/dont-be-the-cause-of-burnout-to-your-team-or-colleagues/