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  • How to develop resilience

    By Super User / 2024-02-26 14:04:46
    WTF is going on in the world right now? Honestly, between the horrible news coming from Gaza and Ukraine, the latest on the climate crisis (recent floods happened in Italy shows how close to home this is now) and the
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Manage your energy, not your time

    By Super User / 2024-02-26 14:00:17
    You might think you have time management issues.  But can you actually "manage" time? Time is an objective (if we don't take into account the perception of time) dimension of our life and we cannot really change it. It is what it is.  We
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Connections

    By Super User / 2024-02-26 13:58:58
     Since I talked about co-creation, I invite you to do a creative self-reflective exercise this week. Create a mind-map (or even a list) of meaningful connections that energise, motivate and inspire you. What can you notice at the end of this exercise? Anything/anyone
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    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • Communicate to co-create

    By Super User / 2024-02-26 13:57:40
    As you might already know, I'm in the process of writing a book about communicating sustainability. I was initially scared that I was going to teach grandma to suck eggs, talking about listening and not interrupting and the lot. But
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Automation is your friend: taking notes

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 11:29:04
    Somehow connected to the previous bit, I know how people in the sustainability/regeneration industry feel incredibly overwhelmed and overworked - especially if you are neuro-divergent, this can be a real issue. Who has time for activism? Now, this is not going
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    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • What catalyses change more, fear or hope?

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 11:27:06
    We rarely reflect on the effects of our own natural attitudes on the way we communicate and, consequently, the results we get. Some of us are pessimistic (or realistic, as some might say) and some are optimistic. I fall largely
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • Communicating (and understanding) regeneration

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 11:22:22
      In the sustainability space, we have a tendency to hide behind jargon, and this has never been a good thing for divulgating important concepts. Regeneration is suffering the same fate.  Circularity....Systems thinking....Systems design...Degrowth... It doesn't help that, in spite of
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • The iceberg model of thinking

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 11:19:26
    There is a lot of talking about systems thinking, and how it can help to unlock sustainable solutions.  But because of its very nature, systems thinking is difficult to grasp.  We are so used to seeking just one solution or one
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Why am I always so tired?

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 11:18:04
    After an intentionally very chilled August (unusual for me, as I tend to always fill my time with something), I had a frantic September.  I went from 10 to 100 miles/hour overnight.  I was excited to get started on lots of
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Involve Mother Nature in your comms

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 11:16:44
    The new Apple sustainability report in the form of a perfectly crafted video is doing the rounds. In the unlikely case you haven't seen it, here it is:   But why mention it here? Because, whether you think it's brilliant or cringe,
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Adapting marketing rules to sustainability

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 11:00:30
    Well-known marketing facts of the last ten years are that: 70-90% of the buyer's journey is complete prior to engaging a vendor (Forrester) Consumer engages with 11.4 pieces of content prior to making a purchase (Forrester) Consumers are 5x more
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Time compression challenge

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:58:07
    If you only had three hours a day to work due to whatever circumstance, what would you choose to do? I bet you'll be going through your endless to-do list and decide on the most urgent and important priority, maybe
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    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Flow with the wind

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:56:57
     Do you know that nagging sensation when you feel you are not up to the job?  Maybe you have changed jobs recently and you feel like you shouldn't be there because you don't know anything... Or that feeling of becoming
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Do you suffer from solastalgia?

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:46:51
    Solastalgia is a relatively new concept, coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2005 to indicate the grief felt when the physical world as you know it, changes. As sustainability professionals, it's hard not to feel anxious, angry, and overwhelmed by
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • Hugh's marathon

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:45:55
    If you are a bit like me, you try and fill your time to the brim and use all your energies on the projects you care about. There is always something you can do to move your projects forward, even
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Are you green, blue, red or yellow?

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:44:50
    One of the most interesting concepts I came across when I was doing the research for my book SustainABLE has been the idea that people, generally speaking, fall within four character categories. While it is ridiculous to think that the 8+ billion people
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • The 12-Week Year

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:40:00
    You know I'm always looking for the next productivity hack... and I am surprised I recently found one I didn't come across before. The book The 12-Week Year teaches you how to be more productive in 12 weeks than others are in
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • The Circle of Control

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:38:27
    Life in general has been fairly uncontrollable in the last three years, you will agree with me. Sometimes our own life feels like a trap, and it doesn't help that we are witnessing the world being flooded, burned and deforested in
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • Once upon a time...

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:37:11
    Princesses and dragons, wizards and villains... Each one of us has experienced the power of a story, since our nursery days. What is that fascinates us so much about following the tribulations of our favourite characters, through thick and thin, until the
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Feel strong like Popeye!

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:34:06
    If you have worked with me in the past, or followed me on LinkedIn, you'll know I'm a stubborn optimist. I work in the sustainability industry and hang on to the last bit of hope that we can change things
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • How to prioritise your work (a simple method)

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:32:18
    I have talked before about the Eisenhower matrix, which is a good way to distinguish between useless tasks and important/urgent ones. However, sometimes we need something more snappy and practical.  I was at a webinar a couple of months ago where Hailey
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Five easy steps towards highly productive meetings

    By Super User / 2024-02-20 10:10:15
    You have managed to land a meeting with one of your prospective clients. You prep your team. One of them updates the slide deck with your company's achievements and services. Another one will come with you to take notes and learn.
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • What's success for you?

    By Super User / 2024-02-16 15:56:43
    As a purpose-driven individual, I'm sure you don't think about success in the same way Mark Zuckerberg does. You might think less of money and more of work-life balance, or environmental goals you want to contribute to.  Or you might
    Read More
    • Sustainability
  • With the risk of sounding like my grandma when she was still alive, I am going to tell you: the world didn't use to be like this.  I'm a 70s baby, and I can still remember the long summer holidays,
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • How do you get around Parkinson's Law?

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    In 1955 Cyril Northcote Parkinson wrote in a humorous essay for “The Economist” that  "work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion". I'm sure you have experienced this in your own life. You have a deadline to complete a piece
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Communicating without words

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    Not everyone can be a great communicator.  Not everyone has been blessed with being articulate with words. But, if that's you, does that mean that you cannot communicate sustainability? A few months ago I came across the Red Rebel Brigade via a Guardian article.
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • The why, how, who and what of priority setting

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    Most people set priorities in relation to their ongoing projects and emails, without questioning most of them. But this leads to neverending to-do lists, in which everything ends up being a priority. In one of the past newsletters, I shared
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    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • The Good Life Buckets

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    I recently came across the concept of life buckets. Life can be seen as three main categories which we can call the Good Life Buckets (source: The Good Life Project):  Your vitality bucket, it's about your mind and body. It's about creating the
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • A staged performance

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    Have you ever considered at what stage of their sustainability journey your clients or audience are? When you approach a new client, you might quickly establish whether they have any sustainability/environmental knowledge at all. You might be lucky and they might
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • In a Kanban Style!

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    If you ever used Trello or Asana, you have used a Kanban board-style system. Kanban boards are a visual representation of the workflow of a project, invented by the manufacturing industry to track teams' projects, which have gained popularity in recent
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • The best questions to ask

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    If you have been following me for a while, you'll know I always insist on the two pillars of communication: active listening and asking open questions.  But what ACTUAL questions can you ask for fast results (= better knowledge of your
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • My favourite tools to automate work

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    Time is a precious and limited resource. And so is energy. In my quest for better productivity (i.e. productivity that doesn't deplete me to the ground and yet produces quality outcomes) I realised that lots of my repeated daily actions can
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • The healing power of writing [free writing prompts]

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    Ever since I was a little girl, I have been keeping a diary - you know, one of those with a padlock and Minnie Mouse on the front cover. Now, I'd be lying if I said it has been a constant
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • How to avoid death by Powerpoint

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:25:59
    I had to endure some awfully boring presentations in my life. Also, some terrible lectures at university.  I had this one architectural design professor who would sit and read aloud from a document for two hours continuously...  Never occurred to
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Left Brain Right Brain

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:23:36
    So we have been talking about your brain, and the left/right functions... The question now is: How much space do you give to your left brain, and how much to your right brain? Do you ever give a voice to
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • How does your brain work?

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:20:23
    You might know that your brain’s left half is primarily responsible for speech and abstract thinking (i.e. logic and language), while the right side of the brain is responsible for image processing and spatial thinking (i.e. emotions and creativity).  It looks like, when
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Friction or Flow?

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:20:23
    As you might also know, I have started writing a book on communicating sustainability. This is technically my third book, and there is always an initial phase in my writing process that feels clunky.   I have lots of great ideas,
    Read More
    • Sustainability
  • Core winning abilities in a distracted world

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:18:38
    I'm currently bingeing on Cal Newport's podcasts on YouTube - my form of distraction, if you like... but my excuse is that I listen to them while I cook or do housework, without disturbing my workflow... In Deep Work, Newport argues that
    Read More
    • Sustainability
  • How interconnected are you with nature?

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 14:02:25
    August is a month I never really liked that much. When I was a child, we would go on holidays in July, so August meant boredom lined with unpredictable summer thunderstorm weather. Now, it means summer is nearly over and I
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • The secret ingredient of habit creation

    By Super User / 2024-02-15 13:12:40
    What is the secret ingredient of establishing new healthy habits, and sticking with them? You might have invested your time watching countless YouTube videos on habit forming and read books, including the excellent Atomic Habits by James Clear, yet here you are,
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Why multitasking is making you unproductive

    By Super User / 2024-02-13 14:36:45
     Up until a few years ago, multitasking was everything.  If you couldn't keep 20 tabs open, including your emails and messenger while writing a report and holding a casual conversation about the summer holidays with your colleagues, you weren't doing your
    Read More
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Human beings are irrational

    By Super User / 2024-02-13 14:34:44
    Ever noticed how sometimes we REALLY want something that we don't need (fancy shoes, tech, new Tesla, anyone?!) we buy it, then justify the purchase to others with all these logical arguments that are effectively... made up?! Ever noticed how we
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • In the last couple of weeks, I had two very interesting conversations with two young-ish entrepreneurs who seem to have made it. One, a friend of mine from uni, has transformed his father's artisan restaurant furniture-making business into an industry.
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
    • Sustainability
  • Just Google (or Ecosia) "discourses of climate delay" and you'll see how many creatives have put their art at work to illustrate the massive BS excuses we get fed every single day: The "passing the baton" of responsibility to individuals.
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • This week I came across a comprehensive literature review paper on what works and what doesn't work when trying to shift people's behaviour towards sustainability. The geek with taped glasses in me jumped for joy... but because I'm also a visual learner I thought:
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • Working with your strengths  

    By Super User / 2024-02-13 13:47:04
    And since we are talking about tasks and productivity... one element I am hyper-fixated on is personal strengths. Surely you already know whether you are more creative than analytic, or whether you are happier with spreadsheets than people, but perhaps you
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    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • Walk a mile in their shoes

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 15:09:52
    Empathy is a fundamental trait of a great leader.  Why?  Because it makes it possible to "read" the very specific wiring of other people's brains. It makes it possible to walk a mile in their shoes, understand how they feel,
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
  • The Nature Switch Continuum

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 14:47:55
    I came across this model by reading Coaching Outdoors  by Lesley Roberts.  We all crave time outdoors at times, but can you actually quantify how much time you spend in contact with nature?  Science tells us that any time is beneficial, even a picture of
    Read More
    • Coaching
  • Distraction is a full-time job

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 14:45:16
    Did you know that we spend an average of 8 hours between TV and smartphones every single day?? The Netflix-ing, social media scrolling, Candy Crushing ones, you know? Those that we all say relax us and give us a break. 
    Read More
    • Productivity
  • Influencing lessons from the past

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 14:40:21
    If you want to influence others to adopt sustainability, the first thing you probably do is to prepare your argument: you might fill a PowerPoint with facts and data, and think about potential objections.  However, 35 years since the first IPCC
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
  • Ikigai-ing your way towards career fulfilment

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 14:11:54
    If you are reading this newsletter, you are probably a self-declared eco-warrior. You want the world to be a better place for future generations.  However, like many people I work with in my coaching, you might struggle to combine your
    Read More
    • Coaching
  • How do you decide what to work on every week?

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 14:09:32
    When planning for the week in the Productive Gorilla system, I suggest members that they should use the Eisenhower Matrix. This is a simple, yet powerful way, to decide what to work on every week, by focusing your immediate efforts only on urgent and important  tasks.
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
  • What is the solution to the climate crisis?  Planting more trees?  Joining Just Stop Oil and throwing soup at paintings?  Waiting for the silver bullet technology that will save us all by sucking all the CO2 from the atmosphere? And,
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
  • Your life is a sailboat

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 13:55:23
    Yep. Your life is a sailboat, and you are the captain, me hearties. Your personal strengths power you like sails, your values give you direction like a steering wheel, and your goals are your destination.  You can control all of those, but
    Read More
    • Coaching
  • When you feel stuck...

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 13:53:15
    Now and then, we all feel stuck.  Perhaps there is a bad habit we just can't shake off or a challenge we can't seem to be able to overcome.  Unfortunately, our busy life leaves little space for deep reflection, which
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Productivity
  • How to use money arguments to push sustainability

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 13:49:00
    To make my money go a bit further, I recently switched monthly donations from Ecologi to ClientEarth, which takes governments and corporations to court when they breach environmental laws.  A few months ago, ClientEarth took Shell's management board to court. If that's not surprising,
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
  • Ch-ch-ch-changeees...

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 12:01:32
    Now and then, we feel we need a change.  Perhaps we have grown out of the role we are in, or maybe we need something different because of new circumstances in our private life (parenthood, house moves, caring responsibilities, mental health...).  Sometimes,
    Read More
    • Coaching
  • If you are like any other human being, on average you sleep for 7 hours a day, work for 8, attend to your body's needs (like eating, washing etc.) for 2, and commute or do errands or housework for another 2. 
    Read More
    • Productivity
  • The Fighting Language of Sustainability

    By Super User / 2024-02-12 11:48:32
    Did you know you are at war? If really feels like it, if you read the scary headings of newspapers and your LinkedIn feed talking about fighting the climate crisis, tackling environmental disasters, becoming eco-warriors... Without discounting the seriousness of
    Read More
    • Soft Skills
    • Sustainability
  • How interconnected are you with nature?

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2024-02-12 10:21:20
    August is a month I never really liked that much. When I was a child, we would go on holidays in July, so August meant boredom lined with unpredictable summer thunderstorm weather. Now, it means summer is nearly over and I
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Sustainability
  • The moment you registered your company with Companies House. The moment you got that first client who was willing to pay you to carry out an environmental assessment. The moment you hired your first employee to help you with the
    Read More
    • Lunch & Learn
    • Small Business
    • Sustainability
  • I have never considered myself a feminist. Not in the extreme sense of the term anyway. Although I have always advocated for equality of opportunities for everyone, whichever sex they identify with, I never contemplated burning my bra. I even
    Read More
    • Resilience
    • Womeninsustainability
    • Your Community
  • The power of resilience in uncertain times

    The power of resilience in uncertain times

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2020-08-03 09:55:52
    I will echo many other people saying that we are living unprecedented times. Life as we know it has come to a weird standstill. Bars, restaurants and shops are starting to reopen after the pandemic, schools and offices have moved
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Resilience
    • SustainABLE Mastermind
  • Is sustainability a luxury?

    Is sustainability a luxury for the wealthier?

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2019-03-01 09:55:52
    I have been thinking about my personal finances a lot, lately.I dedicated the whole of February to money wisdom. I worked out that I have about 25 years (everything going well) of working life still in front of me, and
    Read More
  • Using science to influence sustainability clients
    If you have children, you might have heard about oxytocin, aka the “happy hormone”, which is released when you bond with your newborn baby, and is even injected into expecting mothers to induce labour. Oxytocin is produced after any emotional
    Read More
  • Using storytelling in technical situations
    A few years ago, in a quest to refurbish a 1960 concrete block on the BRE site in the most innovative and sustainable way possible, I had the good fortune to meet an extraordinary man and architect. He was one
    Read More
  • What is sustainable architecture?

    What does sustainable architecture really mean?

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2018-11-15 09:55:52
    I was recently invited to deliver a CPD session on Sustainable Design at a small architectural studio. I was told beforehand that the office didn't specifically look at sustainability in their practices, as it was a small practice. In my
    Read More
  • Can circular economy save the planet?

    Can circular economy save the planet?

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2018-11-15 09:55:52
    This phrase by Walter Stahel, the man who also coined the phrase ‘cradle to cradle’, made me chuckle before I felt the heaviness of its meaning. How often do we actually feel that our single and collective actions have an
    Read More
  • The difficulty of selling sustaiability

    Why aren’t your clients interested in sustainability?

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2018-11-15 09:55:52
    I’ve been asking myself this question over and over again: why aren’t clients interested in sustainability? A couple of months ago, my eight-year-old daughter told me off because we were still using plastic toothbrushes. I’m a sustainability consultant, and sustainability
    Read More
  • Selling sustainability to your co-workers
    It’s another day in the office. Fights over the stapler, ‘elevenses’ gossip, passive-aggressive comments hissed in between the teeth, boiling in silence because your colleague is on Facebook while you are slaving away, talking to the boss instead of having
    Read More
  • The top five skills of a sustainability consultant

    The top five skills of a sustainability consultant

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2018-10-28 09:55:52
    It was all over the national news a couple of weeks ago: according to a new assessment from IPCC, limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. One of the key
    Read More
  • Women and the construction industry

    Why doesn't Wonder Woman wear a hard hat?

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 2018-10-03 09:55:52
    In recent findings summarised in the report Delivering Through Diversity by McKinsey & Co. , it emerges that companies with executive gender diversity perform 21% better than less diverse companies. This means that companies with women in top executive roles, where
    Read More
  • Sustainability performance with LCA
    At a recent networking event, I met a very happy sustainability consultant. Given that my new mission in life is to help sustainability consultants to feel happier in their jobs, mainly by making them more confident and able to ‘sell’
    Read More
    • Getting Started
  • How to be assertive in sustainability
    In today’s culture we are all more or less dependent on the pleasure caused by the rush of endorphins that we get when our posts on social media accumulate ‘likes’. Sounds a bit daft when you read it, even childish
    Read More
    • Getting Started
  • Six Sales Techniques for Sustainability Consultants
    You are at your first meeting with a potential new client, and they are clearly not keen on undertaking a sustainability assessment for their building. They have to do it because it’s a planning condition, but really, they would rather
    Read More
    • Your Community
  • my own feet

    My Slow 2022

    By Virginia Cinquemani / 0000-00-00 00:00:00
    If you have been following me for a while, you might remember that I posted a couple of times in the last year or so about feelings of burnout. Of course, being locked in at home with two kids to
    Read More
    • Coaching
    • Resilience
    • Small Business