Hello and Happy New Year to you all!

I've had a few weeks off to have a quiet Christmas and am slowly working up to being in the real world again. I hope you have had a restful, joyful, and peaceful time too.

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I've realised to my delight that Miners is a whole year old. I started this project last January with this post:

I also posted one about my New Year ritual of looking back and looking forward. (That post is here, if any of you are interested in how I do a mini life audit each January.) I’d been pondering starting something like Miners for a few years before this as I love writing about creativity. I also read this article lately on the type of work that an INFJ enjoys and was thrilled to have all my quirks confirmed! INFJs love to synthesize ideas and this is partly why I get such joy from writing these posts. They clarify and merge ideas for me which leads me to new ones. I am endlessly inspired by other people's creative struggles and paths, and I could write about them forever.

Last week, I managed to get away to Ham Wall in Somerset for 24 hours to see one of the biggest murmurations in the UK. I had been longing to go for weeks, and it didn't disappoint. It is a very popular roost site, and there were probably about 200 people watching, which was a bit of a change to Whixall, where there are just a few of us standing in a dark lane! The birds flew over like a great cloak of darkness. They didn't really murmurate as such, but flew over, gathering into larger and larger groups before dropping into the reed beds. It was a stunning sight, different to how I thought it would be.

The next morning I went back at dawn, and I have to admit I was a little nervous, walking onto the reserve on my own in the dark, but soon, the warm glow of the sun rose over the reed beds and then in an instant, the sky was full of a thousand black beating wings again. They flew over the row of trees and settled down into the next reed bed, where they screamed together like rowdy children, before zooming off into the sky to do their own thing for the day.

I went back that night at dusk and walked along to Avalon hide, which is much nearer to where the starling groups gather before going into roost. It was immense but also I felt hemmed in because I was watching them from inside a hide. I felt like I wanted to take the roof off so I could see them properly. Then I was annoyed at the trees because they were in the way of all the millions of starlings.

It’s funny how even the most amazing things can have an edge of disappointment. (The birds were so far away! The trees were in the way! My phone was totally inadequate at capturing them…) But just being there, feeling so tiny under the sky of a million ships flying in unison was enough. I’m so glad I got to go and see it. But that nagging sense of disappointment brings me nicely to my next point…

I've recently read Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, which is all about our alarmingly short life span and time management. I gleaned some useful life lessons from it.

1) Never try to clear the decks, hoping that once you've got all the annoying jobs out of the way, you'll be able to focus on the most important ones. The decks will never be cleared! If you've got something important to do (like, say writing a sequel to your novel) do it first. I fall into this trap fairly often, thinking I'll just reply to some emails first or pack up my orders. No no no. Do the deep work first.

2) We are finite. Accept your limitations. This spoke to me about the starlings. Nothing is ever perfect though we long for it to be. The more we travel, the more places there are that we want to see. We will never be satisfied (and we will probably never see the perfect murmuration). We probably need to learn to be at peace with this.

It's a great book, full of practical tips on time management, helpfully busting the myth that if we increase our efficiency, we will be able to get everything done. It’s a lie! You will never get everything done. There is no end to the things. You truly have to look at your life, choose what is the most important, and say no to everything else.

And with that, I am off to start life again - back to work in the morning and back to writing book 2 of the Murmuration series!

Let me know by hitting reply to this email - what is your best time management tip?

Thanks so much for reading Miners,

Elisabeth

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Miners is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.