Medium Short: Non-linear focus

A week where I wandered off the imaginary track

B. Lorraine Smith
6 min readJan 27

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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.

Sometimes I don’t know what work needs doing until I roll up my sleeves and start doing it. That was the case with this complaint. On the one hand, yes: it informs the JBS assessment (priority!), yet on the other hand it merits its own article (priority?). But to make an article worthy I needed to do some proper homework on green bonds as it had been a while since I’d looked at them closely. Priority.

So… I read all about ’em. You’ll see why that is not a pie I want to eat more of, in Writing below (think “cow pie” and you’ll be on the right track).

In way more delicious reading, I have begun the Boudica series by Manda Scott. I mentioned her before when she hosted me on the Accidental Gods podcast. But you may not have realized she is a best-selling author, too. Well, she is. And I see why now.

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B. Lorraine Smith

Recovering ESG "expert"; yarn spinner; distance runner; magical realist. Sensing a path to an economy serving life. also at https://blorrainesmith.substack.com/