I find myself in Leeds, preparing to give a research talk. While the temptation was to give a ‘carbon copy’ of an earlier invited talk, I later realised that this was folly. The previous audience was Chemistry-focused. The forthcoming audience was more of a split, with chemists and chemical engineers sitting side by side.

Some content needed to be torn out, other parts refined or reframed. I was, in essence, taking my own medicine. Doing more with less for a talk.

This trip to Leeds was my first to the university…but not to the city. Three years earlier, I went to Leeds, thinking I’d be holed up in a hotel room to finish my book for a few days. Three years later, it’s only now that my book has gone through formal edits and en route to print and audio publication.

While my talk needed less in order to do more, my book needed more time to more readily reach what I wanted to promise readers. Had I put out my ‘final’ draft of the book in late 2019, it wouldn’t have gotten close to what I really wanted to achieve. It would be a scrawling of my unedited and bloated streams of conscience.

Some things need to be done quickly and to a timeline. Other things need more time than you’re willing to give.

What are you working on that might require more time than you’re currently willing to dedicate to the cause?

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