When I’m stuck and don’t know what to write about, to trigger ideas my husband asks me “what did you learn this week?”. As I wrote in last week’s blog post, it’s handoff time as my interim CIO engagement at Boston Children’s comes to an end. The past 4 days was a packed schedule for the new CIO, Heather Nelson, and me. A good amount of time was in standing meetings already on the calendar where Heather got to meet individuals or groups in the IT department as well as some senior leadership meetings. In all the non-meeting time, (the white space on the calendar), I inserted sessions for just the two of us to go through the lengthy 10-page transition outline I had prepared.

Heather joked each day about being a sponge and wringing it out at night to start again the next day. She now has multiple lists of to do’s and discussion items for others as she gets started. Her priority in the coming weeks will be listening. What did Heather learn this week? A lot!

What did I learn? Through these standing meetings and handoff discussions I learned how much more there is to do that I didn’t have the time or opportunity to focus on. At one point I told Heather that maybe I’d write about “regret” this week. She was quick to say, no, look at how much you got done in a short time. My CIO colleagues know that our work is endless. We just need to step back occasionally and appreciate what we have gotten done. That’s true for ending an interim engagement as well.

And I learned how much value there is to being in these standing meetings together as part of the handoff so I could debrief with Heather afterwards adding more context and color. Without getting too distracted, using Zoom chat during the meetings to clarify and add context to topics being covered was also a plus.

And during this very busy handoff week, I learned (again) that moving is indeed a stressor! There is the work involved and the decisions to negotiate (after 45 years of marriage, paint colors should have been easier) and the task list to manage the two of us against a firm deadline. I learned yet again that while my husband may appreciate my project management and organization skills he doesn’t like to be managed.

I’m sure that a week from now, I will have learned even more on this moving front as the truck loads up on Monday and unloads at our new place on Tuesday. And then the great unpacking starts. Together we will learn if we downsized our possessions enough for our downsized space. For all that we have donated, given to our daughters, sold on Facebook Marketplace, put on the curb for free, or tossed out, as I finalize packing what we will actually move I’m learning how hard it is to reduce and simplify.