“Too much R and not enough H”

That’s how a friend of mine described her HR director a while ago.

It got me thinking. Human Resources: humans as resources, or well-resourced humans?

The first makes us think that the answer to all our productivity problems is to throw more people (or time, or money) at it.

The second makes us rethink – what if the answer isn’t how much we work, but how we enable, resource and release people to do their best work?

What makes you well-resourced?

Summer is a brilliant time to get resourced. 

Whether that’s taking time out to recharge your batteries – stocking up on basic things like sleep and Vitamin D.

Taking a different perspective – the chance to reflect and reconnect with who and what matters to you,

Or deliberately going at a slower pace – rather than trying to tackling ‘everything else’ that’s been on hold for the rest of the year.

Here’s one of my go-to summer resources (picture from last year):

Where some girls have a shoe habit, I have a book habit!

Now, let me just say – this to me is a dream because I love reading. Others – my husband for example – would be overwhelmed at the sight of it.

To me, it’s as inviting as a full cookie jar would be to him. I think of it as “plenty to keep me going” rather than “that’s a heck of a lot to get through”. (Update – I never did make my way through all of them, but I did come away feeling resourced!)

People often ask me how I manage to make time to read. The answer is two-fold: I enjoy it, and I treat it as a resource, not an indulgence. It feeds my curiosity and fuels my creativity – whether I’m reading about Micro-Resilience, Why We Sleep or When God Was a Rabbit.

When I find I’m running on empty, reading is what recharges me. It gives me insight, inspiration, ideas to play with and raw materials to work with.

What about you? Where are you feeling depleted?

With two weeks left of the summer what one thing could you do with investing in, to arrive at September well-resourced?