I’ve been coming to the realisation that diversification is key to many aspects of lives. Finding a balance today is almost scarce, but more importantly seeking balance becomes draining. Focusing entirely on one thing is bad and complex. If shit hits the fan with that thing, then your life does as well.

At work I believe you're better off by diversifying your activities, projects and as a result, your skills - it works better in the long run. What I'd like to use as an example is my experience as a Geospatial Sciences postgrad and my ongoing professional career as a GIS consultant. Let me start by saying I was never the student with the best grades as a postgrad - and honestly I didn't mind (admittedly my BSc was totally a different story). It was the time that I knew I had to make the most out my opportunities in 12 months to learn about as many GIS applications and spatial techniques as I could. When I'd be learning something new, I'd sacrifice time on a particular assignment or exam prep. You could argue a lot of things here and you’d be wrong. Were my grades the most important aspect of my MSc back then? No. Do I have any regrets about my approach? No. Would I do it again? Hell yeah!!

Taking skills’ diversification to the extreme side of the spectrum was my postgrad dissertation! This is where I collaborated with an urban planning firm (cringe*) and to the largest extent, I approached my topic (on urban walkability and mapping in London) using an architect's perception of space to apply certain architectural models for my analysis (go figure!). Did I like it in the end? Definitely not - but at least I gave it a shot and down the road I did learn something... a reinforcing passion for GIS.

Now fast forward a couple of years and a few months later as a GIS consultant. It is a whole new world but what I kept constant is the eagerness to explore. Amongst a few people and sources where I sought advise in my early days, was my manager who said in one of the early probation meetings that a complete and all-round consultant knows how and why to diversify their skills - and I try to live by that in my own and unique way.

I'll try and explain what I mean through the illustration below on how I fare compared to others (aka the experts in my company) with regards to professional skills and knowledge. The yellow boxes and arrows indicate my level and the shaded boxes, the experts'. I included geospatial programming languages (SQL, Python and R), Project Management and Admin, my knowledge on our biggest programme (the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory) and Earth Observation & Remote Sensing techniques. What you'll notice is that I'm of course not the best in any of them. Is that bad? I really don't think so and I'll explain why. You can interpret that I'm at a very good level to do most of the tasks which is the point of this post. What works for me with this approach is that I know enough to know what to ask when I have any difficulties and blockers. I know enough to take on more projects, work with different teams on a plethora of topics and meet and collaborate with a larger and diverse group of people in order to expand my network (one of the most undervalued skills as a professional by the way). I get to work on more exciting projects too like I did this summer with my colleagues from the Climate Action Planning Transparency team on helping the Kenyan authorities to build a shipping emissions inventory. And that's utter satisfaction to me and what I believe makes you resilient at work and, more crucially, seen!! All these approaches put together along with open-mindedness, can do wonders in our professional careers let alone our personal lives.

Next thing to explore and diversify... investments!! Let's see what the future beholds on clean energy investments - I'll leave that for another post 😊 I hope you enjoyed! Cheers for now!