On Monday morning, I was sitting with my coffee in the September sun, still wearing my satin robe after the hot tub.

It was 9am, which somehow felt important.

“I still sit here and feel guilty doing this,” I said to Martin. “I have to check myself and remember that this is the life I’m building.”

He told me how lovely it was to see me sitting there on a Monday morning rather than already being two hours deep in emails and busyness.

Then he said something that stayed with me.

“You’re present.”

Not just physically in the room. Actually present.

Even the kids had noticed.

Children aren’t generally known for carefully worded performance reviews, so I took that one seriously.

The strange thing is that I hadn’t thought of myself as absent. I was there for the conversations, dinners, family time and ordinary moments. But apparently, part of me was often still inside an email, mentally rewriting an article or thinking three tasks ahead.

I’ve become very good at being in one place while my brain is working somewhere else.

Since building The Inclusive Edit, there has always been something useful I could be doing. Another article to finish, or introduction to make. One more hotel to research. Another email that might turn into something meaningful.

When the work matters to you, stopping can feel suspiciously like neglecting it.

That Monday morning guilt wasn’t really about sitting in a robe. It was about an old belief that serious work should always look busy.

That it should begin early. It should be visible. And involve several open tabs and at least one drink going cold beside the laptop.

Preferably while telling everyone how busy you are, just in case they haven’t noticed.

But nothing collapsed because I drank my coffee before opening my inbox.

By 11am, I was online coaching my warriors and doing another part of my work that I genuinely love. I felt blessed to call it work, and even more grateful that I now get to choose where it sits within the life I’m building.

That’s the distinction I’m beginning to understand.

I haven’t become less ambitious. I’m becoming more deliberate about what gets my attention.

Presence isn’t time taken away from the work. Increasingly, it’s part of how I do the work well.

The Inclusive Edit depends on paying attention.

It means noticing the difference between a hotel technically having an accessible room and a guest being able to understand, trust and book that room with confidence.

It means looking beyond whether a journey was simply “accessible” or “inaccessible” and being honest about everything in between.

My recent National Express journey is a good example. The fare was under £25, the booking process was refreshingly clear and the staff handled the practical parts of the journey well. There were also details I’d want to understand better, including the wording around responsibility for a wheelchair stored in the hold and the limitation of one wheelchair space.

Both things can be true.

It was a good experience, and there were still worthwhile questions.

That’s the kind of distinction rushing doesn’t always allow.

The same is true of the little luxury travel details that give me the ick. A shower curtain appearing in the £700 a night accessible bathroom when every other room gets a glass screen. A clipboard handed across a high reception desk. A dining chair being whisked away before anyone asks what I’d prefer.

They aren’t always enormous failures. They’re small moments that reveal whether a guest has genuinely been considered.

You notice those moments when you’re present enough to see the whole experience, not just the headline.

The Inclusive Edit won’t become stronger because I’m busy enough to look important. It will become stronger because I’m paying attention to the right things and giving myself enough room to think clearly about what they mean.

That applies outside the work too.

I don’t want to build something thoughtful about how people experience the world while being too distracted to experience my own life properly.

There will still be full weeks. There will still be deadlines, trips, emails and days when my coffee absolutely will go cold.

I’m not floating through life in a satin robe with flawless boundaries and an empty inbox. Let’s not become unreasonable.

But I am beginning to recognise these little pockets of time for what they are.

They aren’t evidence that I should be doing more.

They’re part of what I’ve been working towards.

Coffee in the September sun. A conversation with Martin. Being present enough for the children to notice. Coaching at 11. Writing that feels more considered because I haven’t rushed past the thought at the heart of it.

This is abundance too.

I still have to remind myself of that. The guilt hasn’t disappeared simply because I’ve identified it.

But now, when it arrives, I can check myself and remember what Martin said.

You’re present.

And perhaps that isn’t time away from the work at all.

Perhaps it’s the standard that makes the work worth doing.

If you’ve been rethinking what a good working life looks like, I’d love to hear what being present means to you.

Luiz x