Thinking Out Loud

I am walking through a field, talking to myself about everything I need to do. Wilfy is with me, although his contribution to the planning process is limited. He has his own priorities, most of which require sniffing. My phone is in my back pocket, my headphones are in, and the microphone is recording. Anyone watching might reasonably assume I am on an important call. Fortunately, there is nobody around to hear me disagreeing with myself.

I do not normally take my phone when I walk the dog. Getting outside is a chance to leave things behind for a while. But on this occasion, I had brought rather a lot with me anyway. A head full of unfinished jobs, approaching deadlines, ideas I did not want to lose and things I really ought to have done already. Nothing particularly dramatic. Just that familiar feeling of having so much to do that deciding where to start becomes another job.

Somewhere underneath it all were the things I wanted to make time for: exercise, family, a little space to think about where I am heading. Those tend to be remarkably patient. They will sit quietly at the back of the queue while an email elbows its way to the front.

So, with Wilfy occupied and the fields to ourselves, I started talking. Initially, it was a fairly predictable recital of everything on my mind. This needs doing. That needs finishing. I must remember the other thing. Then it became less orderly. I went back to something I had already mentioned. Added a detail. Remembered why a job was stuck. Started explaining a project and realised I was trying to tackle the whole thing at once. Actually, what was the first step? And did I even need to do all of it myself?

There were pauses, changes of direction and a few sentences that probably never found their ending. It would have made a dreadful letter. But as I walked, I began to hear distinctions that had been missing when everything was rattling around inside my head. Something could matter without needing to happen today. Something else was waiting for a conversation, rather than several hours of work. An idea I liked could wait. I did not have to turn every interesting possibility into a commitment. Wilfy continued his investigations. I continued mine.

What surprised me was how much emerged simply because I had not tried to organise it first. When I dictate something, I tend to compose it as I go. I am already thinking about the sentence, the order, how it will sound to whoever receives it. This was much messier. I was allowing myself to work things out while speaking. Some of the useful thoughts arrived halfway through explaining something else.

By the time we got home, I had a recording full of loose ends. Over coffee, I handed the transcript to artificial intelligence. I have been doing versions of this with my regular check-ins: getting the thoughts out, then using artificial intelligence to help me make sense of them. But this walk brought home why I find it useful.

I wanted help deciding what deserved my attention. What was genuinely important? What could be broken into smaller steps? What could I delegate, park for another week or simply stop carrying around? And I wanted the answer to include the rest of my life. There is very little point becoming wonderfully efficient at work if the reward is finding room for more work.

The checklist that came back gave me something manageable to work with. A few priorities. Smaller starting points for the bigger jobs. Things to hand over. Things that could wait. There was space for health, family and longer-term thinking too, rather than the vague hope that I might get round to them once everything else was finished. I read it through, weighed it up and decided what fitted. The technology could organise what I had said; I still had to decide whether its suggestions made sense.

Then I noticed something. The amount of work had not changed very much. But the feeling had. I could see where to begin. I could also see where to stop. I had left the house carrying the whole week around in my head. Now I was sitting with a coffee, looking at a few things I could actually do.

I will not be taking my phone on every dog walk. I like being outside without anything needing to be recorded, measured or turned into something useful. But occasionally, when my head feels crowded, I will put it in my back pocket and let myself ramble. Wilfy gets his walk. I get some air. And sometimes, somewhere in the middle of a field, I find out what I am trying to say.