No time to read (The Parent Project Month 18)

ByElizabeth Harrin Last updated: Research & Case Studies

 

Toddler reading a board book

I don’t have time to read any more. While all the book reviews this month make it look like I sit around reading all day the truth is that I read most of them while commuting or in the weeks before Oliver was born when I didn’t have the energy to get off the sofa.

I miss it.

Not the sofa – reading.

I have a stack of novels to read: Incendiary by Chris Cleave, a book about Houdini, even The Soldier’s Wife by Joanna Trollope that I thought would be easy enough to get through with a sleep deprived brain. But I haven’t opened any of them: you can’t hold a novel and a squirming baby at the same time.

I thought ebooks would be the answer so I downloaded a Richard Castle novel (yes, my love of US procedural crime drama knows no bounds) and I haven’t even got to that. I forget that it’s there, or I’m using the iPad as a baby monitor. But mainly because at 5am I want to curl up on the sofa with the baby, a cup of tea and DIY SOS: The Big Build as it’s too early for anything else.

I expect there will be a time when I read for pleasure again. In the meantime, I read project management books because I’m going back to work and I want to prove to myself that I still understand phrases like ‘schedule feasibility risk’ and ‘planned velocity’ after months of reading Dear Zoo and Is This My Nose?

The thing is, I’m not sure that I do any longer.

Elizabeth Harrin wearing a pink scarf

Project manager, author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK. She holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University, and several project management certifications including APM PMQ. She first took her PRINCE2 Practitioner exam in 2004 and has worked extensively in project delivery for over 20 years.
Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects.