On my first day back at Ei after a few months of parental leave, I did what I always do: I opened my inbox and signed into Slack. I’m lucky our community manager, Katie, kept my inbox tidy while I was away; still, I felt a wave of disorientation and dread. I clicked the first message in Slack, then noticed the (literal) hundreds of others waiting their turn. Where to even begin?

Thankfully, I caught myself. That question deserved more intention than reflex. I couldn't slide back into work as if only fifteen hours had passed, not fifteen weeks. So I zoomed out, closed my laptop, and grabbed a pen and paper. Instead, I jotted thoughts about what the past few months had shifted in me, what I was excited about upon returning, what felt like parts of the work I wanted to shed, and what I was curious about in this season. Perhaps most importantly, I wanted to give my brain space to come back “online”. To gently shift back into a familiar yet distant context.

So I wrote, then opened that laptop and jumped into some work (including marking all my Slack messages as “read”), and after that, went on a walk. Nothing radical, but something different than how I would typically handle a workday.

Here's what I've come to believe: when something interrupts our patterns, we get two choices. Go back to the way things were, or invent a new way forward. I'm a fan of the latter.

To me, it’s both a sign of respect for the event itself and an invitation to question and rewrite how we do things.

And few things interrupt like having a child. Ask any new parent: it's not just a reshaping of schedules and priorities; it's a reshaping of your very selfhood. It’s like staring at the same painting every day, only to wake up one morning and notice that the palette has shifted entirely. Warmer in places you didn't expect, more muted in others, colors appear that you didn't even know were part of the original.

This concept, of allowing interruptions to change you, is akin to what we've been preaching about good learning. For real behavior change to happen, the experience has to be interruptive. That's the whole point. It shakes us out of the hamster wheel of thinking and doing and helps us to look up and around and realize that just because something is doesn’t mean it has to continue to be.

Interruptive experiences come in many forms; some are selected and designed, and others simply happen to us. So, here's something to sit with: what interruptive experience has shown up in your life recently? And if none has, what's one you could go looking for?

A few places to start, if you're stuck:

• New relationship that has (or could) roused up a different part of you

• Retreat or convening

• New hobby that pushes you somewhere you're not used to being

• High-stakes project that pulls new or long-dormant skills out of you

• Vacation or trip

• Difficult conversation you've been putting off

• Relationship you let drift, now rekindled

Whatever you land on, ask yourself: how can I use this experience to interrogate "business as usual"? You don't have to overhaul every corner of your life. Pick something adjacent to the experience itself. For me, that's how I integrate work with the rest of my life. What used to be eight-plus hours of unbroken "online time," I'm now trying to let move more like a thread, weaving in and out of my day, instead of one taut, unbreakable line.

What will you reconsider? What interruption might be your invitation?

At Ei, we're in the business of building the intentional interruptions that lead to new ways of working. As always, let us know if we can help.

Glad to be back with you all.