My Attempt at Building a ‘House of Communication’
Okay, so things felt a bit off. At home, I mean. Seemed like everyone was in their own little world, glued to screens. Me included, sometimes. You’d walk into a room, and it was just silence and the glow of phones. Felt like we were just roommates, not really connecting. I got this itch, you know? Had to do something about it. Couldn’t just let it drift.
I started thinking. What could actually work? Didn’t want some complicated app nobody would use. Needed something simple, physical maybe. Decided to try building, like, a structure for us to talk more. A ‘house of communication’, I started calling it in my head. Sounds a bit daft now, but that was the idea.
So, first step, I went out and bought this huge whiteboard. Seriously massive. Took up half the kitchen wall. Spent a good chunk of a Saturday just putting it up, making sure it was level. Got a bunch of coloured marker pens too. Felt kinda productive, like I was actually constructing this ‘house’. The plan was simple: use it as a central family noticeboard and calendar. Upcoming stuff, messages, whatever.
Part two of the plan: a weekly ‘family huddle’. Yeah, I know, sounds like something from an office away day. But the idea was just five, ten minutes. Everyone shares one good thing from their week, and maybe one thing they found tough. Simple, right?
Putting it into Practice (or Trying To)
First week, I gathered everyone for the ‘huddle’. It was… awkward. Lots of staring at feet. Mumbled answers. My wife tried, but you could tell she was just tired after work. The whiteboard? It stayed pretty empty. A few random things I wrote up, but not much else.
I kept trying though. For a few weeks. Tried to make the huddles less formal. Brought out biscuits one time. Tried different questions. It just felt forced. Like pushing water uphill. The whiteboard mostly got ignored, except when I nagged.
- Week 1: Initial awkwardness. Calendar barely used.
- Week 2: Tried making meetings ‘fun’. Still felt forced.
- Week 3: People started ‘forgetting’ the meeting. Whiteboard use dropped to zero.
- Week 4: Had an argument about the communication system itself. Oh, the irony.
Where it Ended Up
It kinda fizzled out. The big ‘house of communication’ ended up feeling more like a monument to a failed project. People resented the forced check-ins. The whiteboard became just… a whiteboard. Sometimes shopping lists appeared on it, sometimes doodles. The grand system I envisioned? Never happened.
Made me think, though. It reminded me of this place I used to work. They had all these systems, different teams using different tools, supposed to make everything efficient. But mostly, people just got annoyed with the systems and argued about which way was best. Nothing actually got done faster or better. Just lots of meetings about meetings.
Realized you can’t just bolt on communication like it’s an extra room on a house. You can’t just buy a whiteboard and schedule chats and expect magic. It’s gotta be built differently. Less structure, maybe more just… being present? Listening? Dunno. Still figuring that out.
So, the whiteboard is still there. The formal ‘huddles’ are long gone. Communication? Still hit and miss. Sometimes good, sometimes we slip back into our own worlds. It’s not a finished house, maybe it never will be. More like a constant renovation project. You just keep working at it, bit by bit. Way messier than drawing up a plan, that’s for sure.
