The Shire, about 5:40pm

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Hello Reader,

Something happened at 1:30 am on Sunday, 4th August, that was of seismic significance to our family. Several of us are still in aftershock.

Our grandson was born at 28 weeks, weighing a mere 1.125 kg.

Mum and dad were staying at the John Radcliffe, a teaching hospital in Oxford, UK, when mum was taken down to the delivery room. Within minutes a baby boy was born.

As I write, our new grandson is doing very well. He spent his first few days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and a few days ago he was improved enough to be moved to the next, less-intensive, level of care.

To my eternal gratitude, all this happened, I learned later, in one of the best places on the planet for neo-natal care. God is good.

As grandparents, we are picking up the slack for our son and daughter-in-law. The family are doing well. I suppose this what my generation can do in these times: provide much-needed margin for our children, where and when we can.

Hybrid ICU

When I first went to visit little my new grandson in the ICU, I was a little surprised at what I found. My expectations from the movies was to see banks of incubators patrolled by a nurse or two.

I could not have been more wrong.

Instead, I found each incubator in the centre of its own workstation, monitored by a dedicated nurse. Behind were a bank of monitors with displays of the baby's body temperature, blood pressure, heart beat, etc. all wired up to that little life. Lots of tech was not so much of a surprise.

What was encouraging to me was that amidst all this, each nurse had a writing plinth, where they would be almost constantly be making notes by hand. This state-of-the-art medical facility had a hybrid approach--both digital and analog--to delivering the best care.

The Generation Effect

I recalled recent research of college students who made handwritten notes in lectures and were later found to have a deeper, more integrated understanding of what they learned than the comparison group that took notes on digital devices. Researchers called this the generations effect.

The generation effect is the unsung hero of creativity. I handwrite my Unburdened Journal each morning, and I extract notes on books I read by hand before later committing them to digital apps. In fact, I am handwriting the first draft of this newsletter. Writing by hand forces me to be more disciplined in what I take down as notes, and I add my reflections as I go along.

Sure handwriting is slow, messy, and cannot allow cut and paste. Yet it seems that this resistance helps improve clarity, creativity and retention.

Pen and paper is not the only medium by which we can achieve the generation effect. Rosemary achieves this on her Unburdened Journal using her iPad and stylus pen.

The Unburdened Webinar

In fact, Rosemary will be presenting her Goodnotes app template and how she uses it on our forthcoming Unburdened Webinar. Laura, another of our positive outliers, will be sharing about how the Unburdened structure has helped her find hope and freedom as a writer.

Come and join us:

Queue Idea!

Finally, much of my writing comes from answering questions, particularly from my coaching and mentoring clients, such as Liz. She asked, "How do you manage your portfolio of creative work and projects?"

I showed her. Then, I wrote up this approach in a short ebook:

Her response was,

If you would like to talk to me about this kind of value-added coaching, I still have about three spare slots for new coaching or mentoring clients...yes, despite our grandson's delightful disruption!

All such clients have exclusive access to this and other resources. So feel free to book a discovery call with me at a mutually convenient time.

That's all for now!

Yours, somewhat delightfully disrupted,

In case you were forwarded this email by a friend and you would like to make sure you receive your own copy of my future newsletter, please head over to patrickmayfield.com where you can subscribe for yourself.

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