Don’t sweat the small stuff! – making the tasks we avoid easier to do

We don’t think we’ve ever come across anyone who genuinely loved every aspect of their job. We all have some tasks to do as part of our responsibility that we would prefer to drop if we could. It may be all the emails, or some of those meetings or certain phone calls, but there’s going to be something that makes your heart sink when you think about it.
The effect of these tasks spreads beyond the task itself. When you know you have to do it, it can negatively colour your whole day:

• It brings out the most developed avoidance procedures we have
• We generally don’t do the task itself as well as we might
• It uses up a lot of our energy that could be better expended on things we get satisfaction from

This is too high a price to pay, so it’s worth re-examining our attitude towards these tasks.

What can you do about it?

1. Divide the task into smaller chunks
These tasks can easily become ‘elephants’ in our minds, so break it down into smaller parts: plan to make 1 phone call, not 5; clear 5 extra emails, not 10; avoid back-to-back meetings (at the very least make sure you’ve got 10m minutes between each one); give yourself a little space to breathe – diary in some reflection time; plan a little time each morning to plan your priorities and a little time to get back your perspective at least once a week.

2. Experiment with when in the day you do the tasks you don’t enjoy
We are all better at doing the less attractive tasks at certain points in the day. For example, you may find that first thing in the morning you can tackle something you don’t like, and then feel virtuous for the rest of the day. Or it might be that the end of the day, you’re only fit for something tedious!

3. Do something different
Look for ways to make it more enjoyable or at least interesting. What motivates you? It may be listening to some music, if appropriate, while doing it, or having a little competition with yourself – how many can you do in the next half hour? Or it may be giving yourself the added task of finding something to take away from that meeting, or something delightful about that person you don’t normally connect very well with.

4. It’s OK to avoid things sometimes
There’s nothing wrong with avoiding things if a) it’s not something that makes your priority list that day b) that actually it’s something that you don’t have to do or you’re not the best person to do it i.e.: it’s not really something that you need to do at your level. Ironically sometimes something you don’t like is something that other colleagues are happy to do – so can you delegate it to someone? Or swap it for one of their tasks that you wouldn’t mind doing?

It’s daft to continue to let a part of your job, and often a small part, bring down your mood for other things you have to do. When we let the small things disproportionately affect us, it can ruin our motivation for the entire day. Experiment with ways of making it work for you, and save your energy, creativity and drive for making a positive difference to the things that really matter.

We hope this blog has been useful to you, we think it’s about time that we began to really use the precious time that we have at work to do what needs to be done in a more effective way, working at a sustainable pace that ensures quality and creativity – we’re sharing this because we believe you can and DO make a difference to the organisations you work with, and if we can make your work day that bit easier, well, that’s what we’re in business for!

Have a great month,
In peace,

Di and Jo xxx

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CREATING TIME TO REFLECT

So many people these days seem to have no time to breathe, let alone reflect! Diaries are full for months in advance, the lists of things to do are never-ending, and then you go home and try to catch up on the tasks there despite your weariness.

Our belief that enhanced technology would free people up has well and truly backfired. In those moments between meetings, the phone is pinging with emails and messages, and there is an expectation that we will respond quickly, even if it is the evening or weekend.

What this constant barrage does to us is push us this way and that, without a clear direction. We end up doing whatever is next on the list, or whatever seems most urgent, and we lose our perspective of the bigger picture. And this leads to constant busyness, but not necessarily any feeling of progress or achievement.

Carving out a little time to reflect can make all the difference. We don’t mean just sitting there, exhausted, taking time to breathe – although that’s important too! – we mean reminding yourself of the bigger picture of your life and work.

When we are under stress and pressure to deliver our thinking tends to become very narrow and we lose the breadth of our vision. We can only seem to focus on the immediate ‘what next’ and because we are stuck in the stuff we struggle to see what’s really important, to get proper perspective.

It’s actually relatively easy to get some perspective, we just need to find a little time (could be as little as 15minutes) to stop and ask ourselves some reflective questions.

Reflection questions part 1 – to broaden the context beyond work:

Firstly we need to remind ourselves of the big context: what our lives are about. So we need to consider questions like:

  • What’s really important to me?
  • How do I want my life to be?
  • How do I keep some balance in my life?
  • How do I look after myself?

We don’t believe that any of us would spend the last few months of our lives on the things that so often fill our time. The time we had left would become precious to us and be about what really matters to us and gives us joy. So lets’ make sure that we have time for some of these things now. After all none of us know when those last few months may be. Let’s live our life rather than surviving it.

Reflection questions part 2 – to help us regain perspective on all those tasks that drive you along:

When we are stuck in the day to day tasks that we face at work, we forget that actually we are more in control of our to-do lists than we think. Sometimes just sitting down and asking ourselves what we really want to get out of our week can make all the difference – questions like:

  • What do I want to achieve in my work life this week? 
  • What do I want to achieve in my home life this week?
  • What will give me a feeling of progress towards my outcomes this week?
  • What would make my life easier and more enjoyable this week? 

When we stop and think about it, we can sort out our priorities rather than being driven by the urgent stuff. It gives us back a sense of control, of being in the driving seat, and it reminds us that, most of the time, we are not dealing with life or death situations, and some things really don’t need to be done at all! We all have an innate wisdom, that part of us that knows how to make our lives work. It requires a bit of time and space to switch it on – it gets buried when we just rush from one thing to the next.

So, turn off your phone and your computer for half an hour, once a week. Go on, why not put it into your online diary now – time for REFLECTION – Ask yourself these questions, or remind yourself of the answers you’ve come up with. Give yourself time to reflect and regain your perspective, and take back control.

It’s your life, don’t waste it on things that, when you reflect on them, don’t really matter as much as you think they do!

We think that reflection time will make a real difference to how you feel, and the only cost is 30 minutes from your working week. We reckon it’ll give you a great return on that small investment of time!

Have a great month everyone,

Jo and Di xx

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Tips for thriving in challenging times – developing our allies & creating a real support network

Over the 20 some years that Meta has been in business now, we’ve seen the best of business practices and the worst. We thought it was time to share some of the best practices we’ve seen in action that can help you to thrive rather than just survive the current challenging workplaces most of us face.

One of the fundamentals is remembering that work is not a solo sport, that we work at our best not when we isolate ourselves but when we feel part of a cohesive team and are valued members of the organisation that we work for.

Us human beings are social animals, and it’s important that we develop our own social support networks in order for us to thrive. No I’m not talking about online social networks but real social networks with real people we meet and contact on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. Research has shown that people with the most active social network links are more likely to feel supported and to have a more positive outlook on life, and those that do not have a strong social network tend to feel isolated, unsupported and have a tendency towards a more negative outlook on life.

So what does this have to do with us at work?
Well, the workplace is essentially an extended social network. If we are to thrive and have a more positive outlook about work, it’s important that we develop our support network within our team and wider organisation.

At Meta we’ve often talked about how important it is to have ‘allies’ within your team and organisations, people you can ally with on certain topics that are important to you that you wish to influence. We also think it’s important to have at least one ‘rant buddy’ someone you can talk to about anything in absolute confidence and have a good ‘rant’ with and clear your chest with. And what’s interesting is, that when we share our concerns with others, we often find a kindred spirit, someone who is feeling if not the very same thing, certainly something similar!

When we are under pressure and under stress there is a tendency to try and do everything ourselves. We struggle to see the broader picture and as we become more pressured and the demands on us grow so our focus narrows and narrows until we can literally only see what is next to do on our to-do lists! The irony is that as workloads get bigger we actually need to think more broadly, get perspective on things in order to accurately prioritise and plan what needs to be done.

Our state is incredibly important. Many people now are not getting enough sleep; many of us are running our fuel tanks on empty. So the first step is to notice where our fuel tanks are, are you running on empty? If so, make sure that you consciously make an effort to re-fuel your fuel tank so that you are more resourced.

The second thing is to ensure that you are not doing everything by yourself. There is strength in working with others, and it’s important to share the problems you face. In this case, the old adage is most certainly true; a problem shared IS a problem halved. By opening up to others we can begin to see that it’s not just us that feels like this, that is encountering these issues. Once we realise we are not the only ones feeling this way, we can start to do something about it. Often other people have a perspective that we’ve just not thought of. They help us to see the problem from other angles, to get a clearer picture and often can help us to come up with a way forward out of our ‘stuckness’, into a more sustainable solution.

So who are your allies in your business? Who are people that it’s important to have as a part of your work support network? If you are a leader, who is in your leaders network? Who do you turn to for advice on best practice and leadership advice?

And of course our support network is not just IN work, it’s also outside of work. We often call on our partners and our friends, but its important that we develop other networks of support, involve others who are perhaps in similar positions in other organisations who can understand the particular issues we face.

There is something to be said about developing a community, a network of people that you can share and learn from, it helps us to build our own inner resilience and to deal with the increasing pressures and workloads we all face.

So look to yourself and your network. Do you have a strong, vibrant active support network? Or could it do with a bit of tweaking, re-building and growing?

We at Meta are here to support you in anyway we can. So remember to include us in your support network and if you’re a leader why not come and take part in our new Meta leadership network? The first event is on April 6th and you can find out more about it on our events page – www.meta-org.com/.events
Have a wonderful month everyone, and if you would like some help with the challenges you face, remember we are here in your corner and are only an email or call away!

Jo and Di xxx

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NEW YEAR, FRESH CHOICE

We have an opportunity, every year, to make some fresh choices. We can go back to work and resume where we left off, or we can decide to make it work better for ourselves. Those few days away from our normal routines give us a chance to notice how well or poorly those routines work for us. Stepping away for a little while always gives us more perspective. So before you just fall back into old habits, stop and assess.

Firstly, notice what really works for you, what allows you to be at your best. Do you prefer working to a deadline or being prepared and having things sorted in advance? Do you function better at a particular time of day? Do you have some meetings that really feel productive, and what makes them different? We can learn from our own preferences and find ways to implement them more often.

For example, if the meetings that work for you are shorter, or have less people involved, maybe you can transfer that awareness to other meetings and suggest that they are shorter, or that they involve less people.

Then look at what puts you in a bad mood or makes you irritable. The question is less about what it is than how you can make it a bit better. Maybe you need to take a few more 5-minute breaks, to recover yourself before you tackle the next task. Or maybe you need to spend a bit of time just improving your relationship with a colleague, so it is less transactional and impersonal. Just getting to know each other a bit more can change a relationship and help you to have fewer misunderstandings.

Maybe you need to find a quiet space where you can complete difficult tasks in peace, or talk things through with a colleague to clarify your thinking. No matter what we are doing, we can all find small ways to improve the way we work, so we can feel better about it.

And what’s one way you can contribute to making work feel better for someone else? Can you encourage or overtly appreciate someone more often? Can you give someone your attention for a little while when they ask for it? Making life feel better for someone else also makes us feel better – it’s always good to treat someone else more kindly, and helps our own spirits.

And all those small improvements can be made at home too. You could indulge in things that delight you in your life a little more often. You could go home a little earlier more often, and spend time with the children or your partner. You could appreciate the things that friends and family do for you that you normally take for granted.

If we all made a few slight improvements to our own lives, it would make a big difference to all of us: so much better than big resolutions that we don’t maintain, don’t you think?

So make a fresh choice for 2017, and help to make the world a better place.

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YOUR NEW NORMAL

As you restart ‘normal service’, how about making it a new normal? We’ve all slipped into habits that are not useful to us, so let’s not fall back into those same habits as we begin our normal life routines again.

Have you been working too hard and exhausting yourself? Work smarter: take breaks, do something different when you’re fed up, get more sleep.

Have you been feeling stressed? Take more care of yourself: allow yourself to stop sometimes, give yourself some treats, do something that relaxes you.

Have you been finding it hard to fit in time with family and friends? Timetable them in your planner: make one night a week your social time, your family time, and stick to it.

Have you had so many items on your list of things to do that it’s overwhelming? Pick three out each day that you’ll do and leave the rest on a different list in a different place. Choose one that has been hanging over you, one that really matters, and one you fancy doing. And if you have time to spare, do a bonus one from the other list!

Have you had days where you didn’t have a moment of happiness or laughter? Make it a priority to find something that makes you smile, gives you a warm glow every day.

Above all, remember that this day is your life – keep some perspective. Each day can give you a sense of satisfaction, of achievement, and of loving and being loved. If you put off the things that really matter to you until you have time for them, they may never happen.

Make each day count in making your life happy and fulfilling – we never know if it may be our last chance.

Happy New Year – and new normal!

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ARE YOU BEING KIND ENOUGH?

It’s winter, and nearly Christmas. We are biologically designed to slow down at this time of year, to sleep more, to do less, to rest before the busyness of spring. Yet most people seem to be more hectic than ever, planning for Christmas as well as trying to get stuff done at work before they take their time off.

We all feel as if we have less time anyway, with the shortness of daylight hours and the extra things to be done, and this leaves us tending towards grumpiness!!

Yet Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace and goodwill towards all. So how about starting by showing some peace and goodwill towards yourself?

You could let yourself off some of that pressure and be a little more kind to yourself.

  • Have a few nights of extra sleep – you need it to build your energy
  • Remember that no-one else will be working over Christmas, and you will probably do some of those tasks you have set yourself more effectively after a few days off, so check whether it is really necessary to do it now
  • Remember that Christmas only means a couple of days without shopping these days, so you don’t need to stock up for a major famine!
  • Make sure your Christmas plans include a little ‘me time’, doing something you want to do to just please yourself

Once you have been a little more kind to yourself, you can look at ways of showing peace and goodwill towards others: your family, your friends, your work colleagues. The most precious gift of all is to give our love and attention to others. Presents and cards are just a representation of that, so what else can we do to demonstrate our love?

  • Snuggle up with the family and watch a film you can all enjoy
  • Make their favourite meal one day
  • Put a short message on that Christmas card to tell them how much you appreciate them

It’s time we brought back the essential elements of this season of the year, and allowed ourselves a little more leeway.

It’s all about love and kindness, and it starts with you, so please be kinder to yourself – you deserve it!

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WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? – consciously learning from what work and life sends our way

We may ask this question of children when they’re at school, but we rarely ask it of ourselves on a regular basis. And yet it is an essential aspect of being human: our continuing to learn and develop ourselves. Now when we’re at school, there is an expectation that we will learn new facts and new skills, and we are tested and judged on our ability to do so. As we grow older, there is not generally the same encouragement – or pressure! – to continue to develop our skills and capabilities. One of the things we seem to learn at school is that learning is about coming to grips with something new, and there is less necessity for that as we settle into our particular career and way of life.

However, learning is so much more than that! When we talk about learning from experience, we are talking about the real process of learning: it is the gradual refining of our awareness, our understanding, our skills, and applying them to enhance our lives. We do this by reflecting on what our experiences are like, then taking the parts that work best for us and looking for ways to improve things that don’t work so well.

You may not realise you do this, because it is a natural process – our brains are designed to help us to do it. It is what Darwin described as the survival of the fittest – the process of adapting and refining the way we live our lives, so as to fit into and thrive in our world. We can’t help but do it as we go through our experiences.

So the question is not whether we have learnt anything today, but what we have learnt. When we are not conscious of what we are doing, we can be learning things that seem useful to us, but are not really helping us to be the best we can be and live our lives well. We may have learnt that it’s a good idea to keep your opinions to yourself if you want the boss to approve of you; or that you always have to put others first and be useful to them if you want to be seen as a good person; or that suppressing your values of what’s right and wrong is necessary to fit in. Of course, you will also have learnt some more useful lessons that do help you to be more of who you really are, but for many of us, our continuing learning has diminished rather than enhanced our lives and the way we live them.

It’s important that we set time to reflect on our learning. It might be at the end of the week or perhaps at the end of a month. When we become conscious of this form of learning, we are constantly evolving ourselves, refining our approach to work and life to ensure it becomes better and easier for us. When we learn from our mistakes, and as importantly when we learn from what we do well, then work and life just works!

It’s easy to dismiss our personal development as something that is a ‘nice extra’ to our life and work, however if we don’t give it any importance or any time, then we can get the feeling that we are going round and round in circles, hitting the same blocks and making the same mistakes. It can be very disheartening.

As human beings we love to learn and grow and when we aren’t consciously learning we can feel that we are not moving forward, that we are in stasis. Organisations rarely have the funds these days to do much more than the most essential of technical training, and so our personal and professional development is often left down to us. So what will you do to ensure that you are consciously learning?

At Meta we are committed to identifying easy and useful ways in which people can develop and grow into being the best of themselves, and sharing those ways with as many as possible. We know it’s possible to learn in ways that transform your life into one of possibilities rather than constraints. Isn’t this what we’re really here on earth to do?

Our Journey to Mastery programme is one of the vehicles we have developed that helps you to identify ways of enhancing your life through conscious application of your natural learning process, and we are starting a new programme in January 2017.

So if you’d like to kick start your own personal development plan for 2017, why not consider joining us for this transformational programme?

For more information and some testimonials from those who have already done the programme check our events page – www.meta-org.com/events

And we are not just pushing our programme, we believe its time for everyone to start reviewing their own learning. This year? I’ve learnt so much (often through adversity!) and you know what? When I stopped recently to say ‘what did I learn from all my challenges this year?’ it really amazed me just how much I got from it, and it really made me feel better to know just how much I had learnt. I’m also sure that as a result that NEXT year will be far better as a result.

So why not put aside sometime in your work-diary to review what you have learnt this year, we think that if you do, it’ll give you plenty to think about and might just make you feel a lot better about the year you’ve had!

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STAYING WELL

Have you noticed how colds and unspecified viruses seem to have become illnesses that last for weeks, not days? When I was young, a cold was a nuisance for a few days, not something that keeps recurring over weeks, and if you did get flu, you stayed in bed for a few days until you felt better. Now we have undefined viruses that go on for ages, and that most people just keep going with.

I don’t believe that this is because there are more viruses: I think we are not taking care of ourselves like we used to. There are several factors in this.

  1. We don’t stop when we are feeling ill

We keep going and dose ourselves with tablets to relieve the worst of the symptoms. So we don’t give our bodies the chance to heal themselves. In fact, we add to the stress we put ourselves under by keeping going, which reduces the effectiveness of our immune system and means it takes longer to recover, and the virus can take a stronger hold.

  1. We take our illness into work

Not only are we less effective in our work when we do this, we are also giving all those we work with the opportunity to have the same illness! Viruses are contagious or air-borne, so they spread through being in the same space as others – and if those people are stressed, their immune systems are lowered, and they are more likely to be unable to fight it off.

  1. We live in a constant state of stress

We work longer hours, don’t take breaks, are busier than ever. This makes us more vulnerable to illness, because the constant adrenaline and cortisol we produce to deal with stress is at the cost of the health-giving hormones that support our immune system and the renewal of our organs.

So how do we stay well?

It’s obvious isn’t it!

Firstly, if you feel awful, have a day off, and doze your way through the day. Sleep allows our bodies to heal themselves and recover more quickly. One day out of work at the start of feeling bad is more productive that going in and struggling through, and eventually needing five days off! It’s also more considerate of your colleagues. And don’t say I can’t because of this meeting or that report – they can usually wait a day for you to be fit to do them properly.

And longer-term, find ways of reducing your stress, so that you have a stronger immune system, and can resist illness more easily. Take breaks in your day, give yourself relaxing activities outside work, let yourself have some breathing space!

There is little in life which is really either an emergency or a tragedy. Let’s ease up on the urgency, rush and anxiety, and allow ourselves to stay well.

(By the way, Meta is great at helping you find practical strategies for reducing your stress and caring for yourself better)

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ROLE MODELLING IN LEADERSHIP

When we are young, we are greatly influenced by our role models. As children, we learn to mimic our parents at a very young age and, in later years, whilst our role models may change, we continue to learn from those we admire. These will include our heroes, whether fictional or real, and those at school who may be brighter, better at sports than we are, or those who are the most popular.

Whilst our tastes may change, as we grow older, the desire to learn from and emulate others does not diminish. At work, we try and understand what makes people successful and recognise the behaviours of the most influential.   Our own leadership styles are more likely to reflect what we have picked up from others than what we may have learnt from our own experiences.

Before we notice, others are watching us closely and seeing what works and what they like. And if what we do does not seem to match what we say, we build suspicion, distrust and potentially lose others’ commitment to our leadership.

So I would like you to think about the behaviours that you demonstrate at work. Do these reflect the ways of working that you are trying to encourage or are there inconsistencies? For example, are you trying to encourage others to have a better work/life balance, but are the first to arrive and the last to leave? Or are you trying to improve team working within your department, whilst being openly proud of your independence and autonomy of decision-making?

We are often unaware of these inconsistencies between what we say and what we do, but they are glaringly apparent to others. So, ask yourself some key questions:

  1. What are the behaviours and ways of working that you are trying to promote within your team or department?
  2. How consistent are your own actions in demonstrating these changes?
  3. What improvements or changes in your leadership style do you need to make to ensure that there is greater consistency?

Finally, why not take the opportunity to explain to others the changes you are planning to make? This will demonstrate your commitment, show them that you believe in adapting your own style and so encourage them to take similar actions themselves. And isn’t that what being a good role model is all about?

At Meta we love helping leaders and leadership teams to be the  role model and create the culture in which everyone thrives. If you’d like to find out more about how we can help why not download our Leadership brochure from the link below:

Meta Leaders&Leadership Team development

 

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STRESS – THE SILENT KILLER – isn’t it time to admit we have a problem?

There is no doubt we are living in a speeded up world. We are working far harder and for longer hours, than we ever have. The increased demands of the workplace are causing many of us to become far too tolerant of stress. Right now all of us will know of someone (possibly even us if we’re honest?) who is suffering from stress.

Stress related illness is the number one cause of visits to UK GP’s so what are you doing to monitor your own stress levels? ~Do you know your own physical and mental signs that you’re under too much stress? Do you suffer from difficulty in sleeping? Waking up in the middle of the night? Waking up with butterflies in your stomach? Suffering from low-level anxiety? Making snap or bad decisions? Not able to get over a cold? Getting ill easily and then being ill for a long time before recovering? Not being able to stop yourself saying something before you’ve said it? Feeling out of control? Wired? Short tempered? Being snappy? Uptight? Being grumpy for no particular reason? Not being able to motivate yourself? Bad neck or back or shoulders? Stomach issues? Gut or digestion problems? Struggling to eat? Smoking or drinking too much? All of these symptoms can be signs of stress.

At Meta we have looked at the science behind stress. We look at how the stress hormones affect the body and mind and look at practical ways to recognise the signs of stress and combat stress in the workplace. With some simple tools you really can change your relationship to stress.

We believe its time to highlight this silent killer. Too many of our friends in senior leadership positions have suffered from the long-term effects of stress. We’ve seen what ignoring stress does. It’s not pretty and it’s not clever. We have to admit that as a working culture we have a problem. We have a problem that we are not paying enough attention to. With increased workloads comes increased pressure, with increased pressure comes increased stress levels, with increased stress levels comes mistakes, inefficiency, inability to problem solve, the death of creativity and innovation and more importantly – serious illness. This is something that businesses and leaders need to address. Not just for the health and well being of their staff but for the health and well being of their organisations!

We can’t change how much you have to do on your to-do list but we can help you to truly change the way you work so that you don’t suffer quite so much from stress. Its time to stop ignoring what is right in front of our faces. It’s time to do something about stress.

We have a 1-day workshop on precisely this topic, so why not use your next team away day to do something really useful for you and your team? And help reduce stress in your workplace?

I hope that at the very least this update will make you think about your own relationship to stress. Are you in denial? Are you more stressed than you think? If you tick more than one of the possible symptoms highlighted in your article, you might want to think about it some!

At Meta we believe that everyone should have access to what we’ve learned, so if you’d like to find out more about the ‘science behind stress’ and ways to tackle it, from the extensive research we’ve done, we’d love to help. So get in touch and we’ll see what we can do to help you and your team tackle this silent killer before it’s too late!

Have a great week everyone,

Jo xxx

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