Running with friends and meetings

I don’t like meetings.

Not because I don’t like people, or having great conversations. On the contrary, some of my happiest times are chatting about geeky topics, or deep topics, or light topics, with amazing people.

Having connections with others, talking to colleagues, meeting with friends, are all great, and I relish those.

But I struggle to put time on the calendar to make it happen. Even people I really want to spend time with. Partially because life is busy—in many good ways. But part of it is because a meeting on the calendar requires prep time, meeting time, travel time, and time after to transition to the next thing. It’s a big commitment, one that can break up my day in a way that I’m not great at handling.

In the last year I’ve been testing something, that at least works with my local friends—with an unfortunately high bar that I haven’t found a great way around—every week I share times where I’ll be running in my local trails, and I encourage friends to come join me.

And several have taken me up on it.

Just today a friend and I were able to go on a run, and he obliged me in joining in an activity he hasn’t done too often. We had an amazing time chatting, and I was able to get in some exercise.

This works so well for my own anxious mind, because running is a thing I already want to do daily, and I’m able to use that time occasionally to catch up with friends.

My other workaround, which is still in progress, is starting a podcast to chat with folks who live further away.

Between these two solutions I’m hoping to find a way to have great conversations with people whose lives I don’t intersect with as often as I’d like, while not feeling the chaos of a filled up calendar. It’s almost like office hours, but in the woods.