A big question today: what is work? I know. It sounds very management consultancy. But stay with me.

For many ‘work’ is the completion of tasks on a To Do list. And that kind of work is addictive. It can be enormously gratifying striking through a completed task. I know there are many of us who, when creating a To Do list, intentionally put a task already completed on said list simply to repeat the visceral pleasure of striking through it again!

However, experience tells me that the most important ‘work’ is often missing from the To Do list: the business of building relationships and connections. On a networking course we deliver we usually end it, I like to think powerfully, with a quote by Jan Vermeiren (a networking coach). He says: ‘The only difference between ‘not working’ and ‘networking’ is one vowel.’

So when you think you are too busy to have lunch with a colleague, respond to a request for help from a peer or attend an industry event, perhaps label these activities as ‘work’. When you are in a people business, relationships pay dividends.