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- Replace this text with a one/two sentence description of who you helped this week and how.
- Replace this text with a bullet point list of where you struggled this week.
This space is yours to add to as needed.
- Slow co-working chats when I didn't have tons of energy was nice
- Regular payments, salary approvals
- Attempt 1 at sorting taxes
- More invoices for fiscal sponsorship
- Picking up some of Yo's conversations
- Attending the Edinburgh BioFAIR showcase and it was ok
- Government contract ready training and some thinking about strategy and value
- Progressing the contract to get Bethan on board
- Too much to do and not enough time and generally meh energy levels, procrastinated on the big NASA invoice and definitely need to tackle that next week.
Weather has turned absolutely miserable :(
- I like the co-working chats :) - usually good reflections with people and occassionally, we get some stuff done.
- Several invoices and paper work for fiscal sponsorship, still need to document that properly
- Microgrant reminders
- Nebula cohort retro
- Budget drafts for several proposals
- Budget report draft for Wellcome
- Time/capacity - surprise!
- There's one really difficult task that I procrastinated on
Weather is finally nice!
- 1-1 with Yo and trying to make sense of the mess that is my brain at the moment.
- Some tax bits
- Some thoughts and catching up on new proposals including creating and reviewing plenty of budgets
- Wellcome budget check-in
- Some regular payments
- Some more progress on NASA invoicing
- Some fiscal sponsorship thoughts that need to be followed up properly
- Might have been a little bit overwhelmed with figuring out where to start after some time away.
It's nice to be back :) And spring finally seems here
- Co-working chat: lovely to vent and just hear interesting thoughts from people
- Some more regular payments.
- Last review to release Resident Fellow post.
- Equipment manifest update.
- Started NASA invoicing.
- Some fiscal sponsorship thinking.
- Write a to-do list for all the small, lower priority tasks that need doing and tend to get forgotten.
- A lot of frustration that very little actually got properly ticked off and upcoming business means a lot of this will drag out quite a while. General stuckness feeling continues.
- Big event delviery for the other job coming up. Will wind down OLS work for the next two weeks.
- Quiet-ish co-working and actually getting something done with Malvika. Picking up rest cards again.
- Regular payments.
- Open Seeds 9 brainstorming and initial budget options.
- Finally getting some things to the accountants, even if not quite perfect yet: reconciliation, unassigned transactions, salary allocations.
- Some more work understanding the NASA budget.
- SSI/OLS Fellowship budget overview and planning final to dos.
- Felt a bit stuck on a few things and I'm unsure how to get unstuck. Busy week after a busy-ish weekend so I hope some rest/lazy weekend might help.
- Where's spring? And also why is the wind back?
- Not sure, this week so far was a struggle and I felt disconnected.
- Sorted some contract stuff for the lawyers.
- Wrapped up Turing SPA budget.
- Regular payments.
- Some more NASA microgrants stuff.
- Tried to make time for time off and the other job, so felt like there was no time to get involved in discussions properly.
- Just general brain capacity, feels like there's too much on.
- Weather was horrible, and health scare to start the week did not help.
- Slow team coffee chat.
- Last handover with Emmy 😭
- Regular payments
- Last of the NASA microgrants
- Final version of Turing SPA budget (still to be coordintated with accountants)
- Started reconciliation
- Attended governance committee
- Started a NASA budget
- First leadership conversations
- Time and brain capacity - what a surprise. Energy levels and weather.
- Other stuff is going ok at least. But so looking forward to a slower May.
- Listening to the co-working discussion on publishing a paper. Constructive review discussion about this week.
- Almost all NASA microgrants sorted.
- More handover discussion with Emmy
- Mayya workshop follow ups
- Honoraria payments
- Team meeting
- Catalyst microgrant review
- Microgrants were stressful and complicated this week and ate almost all of the time. General energy levels being low did not help. This was a tough week across the board.
The weather is miserable, too. Really could do with some spring feeling.
- Grant reporting is surprisingly fun
- Progressed NASA microgrants
- Meeting with lawyers
- Turing SPA budget
- More handover with Emmy
- Catalyst reporting
- Felt a bit stressed and overwhelmed overall and behind schedule.
- Miserable weather is not helping this week.
- Visiting Malvika! Good food, awesome weather and just chatting. Not so much working, but sometimes you just need to hang out with your colleagues.
- Some handover with Emmy: Fringe and benefits
- Kicked of contacting NASA microgrant folks
- A rambly 1:1 with Yo
- Checking in with Reina on her SSI/OLS plans and outstanding payments
- Honoraria catch-up, regular payments, some reconciliation work
- Definitely ran out of time to do NASA things which are kind of time sensitive. But at least ended up with a plan for prioroties for next week.
Yay for making time to catch up with folks and seeing the bands you love live. And sunshine.
- Small, cosy co-working.
- Amelie soundtrack in team coffee.
- Reimbursements.
- Some prep for microgrants and nanogrant reimbursements.
- Made a start on reconciliation and chasing receipts.
- Governance committee.
- Starting to chat handover with Emmy.
- Started Turing Way budget work.
- Small bits around mutual support, buying an article for Mayya, updating automated email messages.
- Feels like a lot of things ended up being half-baked - definitely a bit of feeling overwhelmed and not feeling like having enough time to do all the things.
- Looking at the list of things I've done: I was productive but I also feel incredibly tired and like it wasn't a good week.
- Listening to Tracy Chapman. Private slack conversations validating my struggles.
- Paid people, even if it took much longer than it should have.
- Discussing mentorship offerings
- Sorting some invoices and catching up on many small finance things
- NASA finance conversation
- Pinging people for the governance meeting next week
- Some reconciliation and aged payables.
- Paying people. Some transfers hit issues and setting up alternatives didn't work as I hoped.
- Time! This week was all over the place.
It was a week! Pretty much on every level. Not what I expected after a week away, but I survived!
- Chatting in co-working
- More honoraria payments
- Some invoices and more microgrant chasing
- OLS/SSI Fellows comms around finance deadlines
- OLS-8 retro
- Governance committee conversations
- Some thinkin/writing about OLS mentorship support
- Plenty of thoughts about finance workflows that could be improved without an immediate idea of when they can be tackled.
- Why do periods before leave always feel extra busy?
Started the week very tired and low on energy, looking forwarad to a break. January was looooong.
- Doing some promotion for things! I enjoyed it, even if it felt slow getting things published.
- Checking in with Mayya in the co-working.
- Sorting more microgrant receipts.
- Paying more honoraria.
- Governance committee work
- Reconciliation
- Get some small team check-ins scheduled.
- Nothing obvious comes to mind. It was a good week, I got through the immediate to do list.
Attended a great workshop on the weekend. And had a week that was less busy to catch up on things.
- Thinking about tasks for 2024 in a slightly more strategic way.
- Sort through a lot of microgrant receipts.
- Start paying honoraria for OLS-8
- Reviewing several conference abstracts
- Catching up on fiscal sponsorship discussions
- Going through aged payables
- Figure out finance to dos for the next few weeks.
- Energy levels at the start of the week were not great. And time wasn't quite enough to get everything done this week.
2024 started really busy, hope it calms down a bit so I can start to think a bit more. Reminder to myself to take leave and make sure there are breaks.
- Co-working was very wholesome. Talking socks, being supportive without taking over and getting more reading recommendations (when will I manage to read all the things?!)
- Some of the 1:1 conversations about things to come in 2024. Super exciting and a little bit scary in the right (?!) way
- Getting reconciliation and unassigned transactions back to PEM.
- All the microgrant receipt reminders for OLS-8 and making sure we're ready for honoraria
- Looking at invoicing and payment approval workflows. More work needed, but start made.
- Finance check-in.
- Some prep for some of the 2024 tasks.
- Focus at times. And still felt like it took a bit to get back into 2024 and figure out what needs doing.
It felt like a busy week overall with consultancy having something happen every day. Definitely felt like this distracted the focus on some days.
- Getting NASA certified in 20 minutes - good to know that I still have the knowledge :)
- Picking up payments after the break
- Getting finance spreadsheets for the accountants ready to be approved/checked by Emmy
- Picking up suggestions from the team retro and starting an initial plan
- Focus beyond the big finance tasks, a lot of tiny things that I remembered and I'm not quite sure how they fit yet.
It's kind of nice for everyone to be back again and to tackle 2024.
- Some time to write up my personal user manual - felt helpful
- Not sure if joy is the right word, but the OLS team retro meeting was very useful.
- Regular payments
- Exploring Xero and getting a better understanding how to use it for reporting
- Participatory budgeting webinar
- Hosting the co-working
- Pitching a consultancy offer on supporting a mentorship programme, discussing it with Malvika and getting that written up
- Tiredness, motivation - definitely looking forward to the end of the year.
- Launched personal consultancy website and ticked off a major item on the 2023 to do list.
- Managed day time walks!
- Honest conversations and things that seemed to be issues in my head being validated. Not sure it's joy, but it's good overall.
- Catching up on a long list of regular payments
- Governance meeting and some admin ahead and after
- Some more reconciliation, invoice updates, budget reviews
- Fellows blog process updates
- Conference abstract review
- Some website update planning
- Motivation was an issue at the start of the week, it got a bit better as I plotted on and things got done.
It's cold season, so I just focus on resting when needed and getting to the end of the year.
- Quiet Friday co-working, sunshine.
- Reconciliation
- Supporting Ally Skills (gratitute to Esther for doing the bulk here when I wasn't feeling great)
- Regular payments
- Governance committee meeting
- Some team retro and grant reporting and investigating of options that wasn't necessary in the end
- Energy levels at the start of the week - body let me down there.
Not this time.
- Reflecting about team retro aspects and my personal user manual.
- Kept payments going.
- Did a round of updates for microgrant admin.
- Wrapped up the book club, kinda.
- Some more Ally Skills promotion and liaising with Esther around the next workshop and setting up documents.
- Identifying any goals - feels like I'm pretty aimless within OLS.
- Book club reflection: it seems incredibly hard to get people to commit to a regular schedule and getting any engagement. While I love the idea, definitely not worth the time and effort and even I struggled to do the regular reading and having smart thoughts. Such a shame though, I did enjoy the book club that worked but need to figure out something else for the future.
- Putting the OLS team reflection thoughts into practice.
- Keep payments going
- Turing SPA project reporting
- Supporting the Ally Skills workshop without having a nervous breakdown
- Finally looking at some of the governance docs that have been on the to do list - not sure I contributed much though
- Feeling not well prepared and like an impostor for the Ally Skills session.
- There are still finance things that trip me up - nothing that can't be sorted somehow though.
- Busy week - didn't stress out too much I think but definitely ran a bit out of steam on Friday...
- Playing with my cards and thinking about OLS team reflections. Aligned chats in the co-working session. Unexpected amounts of sunshine.
- Reconciliation (again) - sorting receipts and preparing reimbursements.
- Regular payments, invoicing.
- Accounting and reporting training and reflections on processes.
- Some Ally Skills workshop prep.
- Don't feel quite as prepared for next week as I'd like, trying not to micromanage.
- Felt like I progressed some life admin this week. Still too tired and looking forward to a longer break.
- Slow governance meeting that allowed my brain to catch up
- Small co-working call that allowed for some nice chat
- Catching up on honoraria and other payments
- Reconciliation
- Felt a bit tired and unmotivated this week - change in clocks is noticable and I'm trying to prep for winter. Also trying to wrap my head around the fact that getting through a short-ish to do list is still good.
- Not at the moment.
- Another Fellows mid-term review and co-working - it's just lovely to catch up with folks
- Catching up and tidying a lot of the microgrant and finance bits, tons of small things making sure everything is up to date in various systems
- Updating the microgrant policy
- Some Ally Skills promotional bits
- Understanding budgeting for UKRI and where I can help with that proposal.
- Staring at a few more finance bits unsure what to do.
- I took an afternoon off! Hopefully getting into a rhythm where I don't feel I have to catch up on everything and take a regular breather.
- Lovely SSI/OLS Fellow check-in
- Unblocking something I've been procrastinating about for 3-4 weeks.
- Chaired team meeting (almost on time)
- Created some templates that should help with account reconciliation going forward.
- All the reimbursements.
- Paying and invoicing folk.
- Reading a lot of small things that have been bookmarked for a while.
- Getting the reading for the book club done - why is it so much harder when it's one I actually suggested?!
- Getting to a point where the overall work balance seems to work out - so that's good. Feeling ready to reflect and prep for 2024 already, maybe it's the stormy weather that makes me want to curl up and think.
- Check ins in dedicated meetings
- Fellow check-in prep
- Catching-up on a lot of small things
- Book club
- It was a short week, so the urgent stuff is probably covered and everything else is just book marked into a long to do list for the next weeks.
- Our holiday didn't go as planned, so I'm probably less well rested than I hoped. Need to monitor to figure out how to keep energy going and where to take breaks.
- Catching up with folks in the co=working
- "Boss bitch transformation"
- Finance reporting
- Getting OLS/SSI Fellow reviews kicked off
- Some more small payment stuff, slow things take a lot of time sometimes!
- Book club kick off admin
- Facilitator sessions
- Had a few days where I wasn't feeling great, so those were slow and felt unproductive.
- There are some tasks that I'm procrastinating on. But I asked for help to get them unstuck.
- Looking forward to some time off and have the body recover from 2 weeks that were not fun.
- Being helpful and unblocking people
- More microgrant stuff - almost there
- Interim report help
- Governance committee support
- Pain and thus focus, but it still seemed an ok week overall.
- I need to find some time for reading. Haven't had mojo for that in September and it doesn't feel great!
- Checking in with Yo
- More microgrants - I'm almost on top of all of them
- Reviewing some consultancy docs
- Finally starting the costing and webpage for consultancy stuff - still more to do, but there's a spreadsheet and methodology of some kind.
- Took a while to work through the harder microgrants.
- Focus in parts - not sure where a good place to provide input is.
- It definitely felt like autumn arrived and I struggled to adapt.
- Porridge - I did not completely crumble even when it got stressful.
- Reconciliation
- More microgrants and payments
- Facilitator onboarding session feedback
- Governance input
- UK trains
- Tackling the complex microgrant requests
- Donor policy didn't happen
- I'm out of brain capacity for this week, so no.
- Some interesting input from RSECon, more relevant sessions than expected.
- Feedback on a proposal.
- Supporting the governance committee call and some follow up thoughts.
- Progressing some more microgrants, it's going slowly as the more complex stuff is left now.
- Sorted an invoice on something that's been pending in various stages for months.
- Focus when I was trying to follow a conference and do other things in parallel.
- Summer has been back for a bit - I'm glad I took breaks to enjoy it.
- Replace this text with a one/two sentence description of who you helped this week and how.
- Replace this text with a bullet point list of what you achieved this week.
- Replace this text with a bullet point list of where you struggled this week.
This space is yours to add to as needed.