Medium Short: Non-linear focus

A week where I wandered off the imaginary track

B. Lorraine Smith
6 min readJan 27, 2023
My own foot prints on my front steps are accompanied by bird foot prints — house sparrows, I believe.

Welcome to the latest Medium Short, a weekly accountability practice highlighting what I am reading, writing, and doing along the unmarked trail towards #IndustrialHealing. By the way, all of my articles are freely available through this link.

I have a super concise prioritizing habit: on Monday I write what needs to be true by end of day on Friday. Then at the start of each day I write down the two or three needed steps to get there, and that’s all I focus on. If I get pulled into something else, I always come back to my short list of priorities.

It works brilliantly. Yet somehow this week after diligently checking off Monday’s chores, Tuesday coaxed me fully hors piste. Here’s what gave…

Reading: painful principles, delightful dreams

If I made a pie chart of the words I digested this week, the biggest slice would be about green bonds. I wasn’t planning on researching the principles underpinning sustainability-related debt finance. But because I’ve been public about the JBS Matereality assessment, people kept tagging me on the complaint lodged against JBS by Mighty Earth. I figured I better pay attention.

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B. Lorraine Smith

Former sustainability consultant replacing ESG with reality-based insights about corporate purpose and impact. https://www.blorrainesmith.com/