Kintsugi Spring 2021 - The Time Issue

SPRING - ISSUE 9

THE

TIME I SS U E

Self ··Wellbeing · Home · Fashion · Beauty · Health 1

Contents 3

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Why time is the most precious resource we have and why now is the moment to consider our relationship to it

What could you do if you dedicated just one hour each day to improving yourself and your life? Annabel Harrison meets podcaster and author Adrienne Herbert to discuss the art of the Power Hour

From the editor

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The mindful five Cheerful colours and bold designs to welcome spring

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Reading list Reparenting ourselves, the path of loss and ways to make positive changes in the world, our Spring reads offer much food for thought

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Five apps for...

Making the most of your time

The power hour

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How to break the procrastination cycle Procrastination and perfectionism are often two sides of the same coin. Author and psychologist Suzy Reading tells Elle Blakeman how to get life moving again

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Take your time Are there enough hours in the day to change our lives for the better? Yes, says Laura Vanderkam – if we approach time management as a skill to be practised

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The battle of life admin From car tax to holiday insurance to remembering the recycling, life admin drains our time, energy and headspace.

But could there be another way?

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Creating a life that matters When we live our lives according to our values, incredible things can happen. But how do we know what really matters to us?

Here, Gemma Jones explores how to connect with our true selves and create days that inspire and motivate

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Lagom: the secret to balance The Swedish concept of lagom has been hailed as the simple secret to happiness. But can it help us find more time in our busy lives? Emma Johnson finds out

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Stop the clocks Many of us may feel we have lost a year. Emma Johnson looks at how our idea of time can change for the better

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Transform your life with Feng Shui How the right changes to our external environment help support our health, attract wealth and invite more happiness into our lives

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Comfort and joy How can we bring tranquillity into our homes? Annabel Harrison speaks to Scandi Rustic co-author Rebecca Lawson about embracing the calming and nature-inspired elements of Scandinavian style

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The art of rest Living in a world that values productivity over wellbeing it’s no wonder we struggle to switch off says author Emily Jackson. Here, we look at how to rest more, and rest better

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Rest and repair They say a good sleep is the best medicine, and its restorative power is unlocked long before you pull back the covers. Here, Claire Brayford finds the latest sedative soaks, peaceful pillow mists and calming candles to let fatigue float away.

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The tree of perspective A beautiful tale of the power of time

69 Az-Zāhir

Editor-in-Chief Al Reem Al Tenaiji Managing Editor Dr Asma Naheed

The Manifest, The Evident, The Outer, The Conspicuous

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Redefining normal For those facing tough battles in life, there comes a time when we all have to decide what recovery means to us personally. Here, Najla AlTenaiji asks if it’s time to let go of ‘normal’ and instead find a new balance

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Time to reassess Dr. Asma Naheed considers a work/life balance in a post-Covid world

Editor Elle Blakeman Editorial Assistants Paris Starr Annabelle Spranklen Creative Director Rosemary Macgregor Sub Editor Bruno MacDonald

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From the editor...

‘The most precious resource we all have is time’ – S teve Jobs

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t is a truism that time is more important than money. ‘Time is free,’ author Harvey Mackay noted, ‘but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.’ Time is, say some of our finest writers and poets, our greatest gift.

Yet time is an illusion, a construct. Most of us feel we don’t have enough, and yet it is the most democratic resource: a day is twenty-four hours for you, me and Beyoncé. Of course, you are likely to have less help and more admin to deal with in your twenty-four hours than Beyoncé, but that’s another matter.

Over the past year, our relationship with time has been examined and challenged as never before.

In removing long commutes and many of the dayto-day activities that filled our lives, the pandemic has given us an opportunity to question how we spend our time. Are we happy with where this most precious resource is going?

In Macbeth, Shakespeare wrote, ‘Let every man be master of his time.’ How we spend our time is key to what we achieve. Everything from improving our work life, to mastering hobbies, to the depth of our relationships demands time and attention. Without putting in the hours, we don’t get the results.

For women, time can seem our biggest enemy.

Clocks and calendars fly past us without ever giving us enough to do what we need. That is why we have dedicated this issue to time: to consider how we spend it and why, and what changes we can make to bring more peace, joy and meaning into our lives.

One reason for the panicky, ‘I don’t have time’ feeling is relentless to-do lists. Ever-growing in

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complexity, they threaten to overwhelm even the most organised among us. But could there be another way? In this issue, writer Annabelle Spranklen investigates the growing phenomenon of life admin – the Sisyphean household tasks that never seem to stop – and looks for ingenious ways to deal with it.

We also turn our attention to the much maligned concept of procrastination. Psychologist and author Suzy Reading looks at the deeper reasons for this paralysing behaviour. (Spoiler: it’s not laziness.)

Writer Annabel Harrison speaks with two extraordinary time-management experts: podcaster and author Adrienne Herbert and author and TED talker Laura Vanderkam. They discuss how we structure our time, where our priorities lie and the importance of putting ourselves on our to-do list.

In a beautiful, thoughtful piece, Emma Johnson explores the many ways of thinking about time itself. Is it linear, a march from birth to death, or more seasonal, with periods of bloom and retreat throughout our lifetimes? Taking inspiration from different cultures all over the world, Emma asks if now might be the time to reconsider time.

Finally, we look at the need to take time out for ourselves. After decades of societal messages of working hard and ‘having it all’, Emily Jackson argues that many of us struggle to switch off. In her brilliant essay, she looks at how and why we must give ourselves permission to rest.

From top: Panama Dukes Organiser, £355, Smythson. Cotton pyjamas, £150, Desmond & Dempsey at Net-a-Porter.

18-karat gold and diamond Mini Hamsa necklace, £1,490, Brent Neale at Net-a-Porter. Gold and Glass Etched Floral Mirror with Chain £29.50, Oliver Bonas. Rose Sea Polish, £40, French Girl Organics

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The

Mindful 5

Uplifting colours and bold designs to brighten up your days

NOTES OF SUMMER

SPRING SCENT There’s nothing quite like a new zingy fragrance to lift your mood and help you emerge, fresh and glowing, into a new season. The just-launched Yellow Hibiscus Cologne from Jo Malone London is all about basking in the spring sunshine on exotic shores, swept up in a wave of juicy hibiscus and a flutter of petals. It’s light and uplifting and the cheery canary yellow bottle is just the perk-me-up our dressing tables need.

Assouline’s St. Tropez Soleil explores the famous idyllic town in the French Riviera that overlooks the beautiful azure waters of the Mediterranean sea. Coined

by Simon Liberati and packed full of iconic, wanderlust images – from the Les Bravades to the Les Voiles, and iconic events like the Chanel fashion show and Naomi Campbell’s exclusive white parties held at Nikki Beach – it’ll have you wanting to pack your bags immediately.

Yellow Hibiscus Cologne, £105, Jo Malone London

St. Tropez Soleil, £70, Assouline

TAKE A SEAT

GREEN FINGERS

With the arrival of spring comes our desire for change, whether that’s a little spring cleaning or new statement addition for your home, it’s a way to instantly refresh and update, especially if you’ve spent the last year working in a space that feels rather monotonous. The burnt orange hue of this sumptuous velvet chair, with its gold-toned legs and pretty scalloped edges, will add a bold and dazzling accent as well as a place to curl up and daydream as you please.

You don’t need a big garden to enjoy some of the wonders of spring – even the smallest of places can bring some of the joy of the great outdoors inside. This vivid scallop planter from Matilda Goad, hand-painted in a soft, cloud-blue and daffodilyellow, is enough to brighten up the darkest of spots and will look wonderful filled with seasonal plants, or potted herbs on a kitchen worktop. Or simply fill it with pencils for a dreamy desk addition.

Flora Scalloped Velvet Armchair, £395, Oliver Bonas

Scallop planter, £36, Matilda Goadr

DREAMING OF TRAVEL While travelling has been restricted over the past year, many of us have been plotting our next big escape – and what better way to indulge than investing in a timeless and chic piece of luggage? This rich ivory-toned leather carry-on case from Globe Trotter has a classic feel to it, like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. It’s roomy enough to hold your must-haves while being small enough to keep close to hand.

Ivory Safari case, £1,455, Globe Trotter

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The

Reading List Reparenting ourselves, the path of loss and ways to make positive changes in the world, our Spring reads offer much food for thought

THE ENDS OF THE EARTH ABBIE GREAVES -

Every evening for the past seven years Mary heads to Ealing Broadway station with a sign that reads: ‘Come Home Jim.’ That is, until a call out of the blue turns her world on its head. In spite of all her efforts, Mary can no longer find the strength to hold herself together. She must finally face up to the truth and discover what really happened to Jim. An emotional tale of love and loss and finding something new.

WORKING HARD, HARDLY WORKING GRACE BEVERLEY -

Entrepreneur and self-proclaimed ‘lazy workaholic’ Grace Beverley confronts the unrealistic balance of 24/7 work juggle with some form of self-care. Here, she offers a fresh take on how to navigate modern life without inducing a burnout, helping readers to create their own balance while also becoming more productive and feeling more fulfilled.

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THE AFTERGRIEF HOPE EDELMAN -

There’s a common misconception that grief should have some sort of time limit. Here, author Hope Edelman explores the idea that the death of a loved one isn’t something to get over, get past or move beyond. Instead, she argues, grief is in constant motion; it is tidal, easily and often reactivated by memories and sensory events. In this beautiful book, Edelman validates why we feel ‘stuck,’ why that’s normal, and how shifting our perception of grief can help us grow.

SENSEHACKING: HOW TO USE THE POWER OF YOUR SENSES FOR HAPPIER, HEALTHIER LIVING CHARLES SPENCE -

How can furniture affect your wellbeing? What colour clothing will help you perform better? And what simple trick will calm you after a tense day at work? In this revelatory book, Oxford professor Charles Spence, dubbed the Marie Kondo of senses, explores how the senses are stimulated in nature, at home and in the workplace and how we can use them to rearrange and declutter our way to better living.

ON WANTING TO CHANGE ADAM PHILLIPS -

We are all surrounded by reminders to change or to become a ‘better version’ of ourselves, whether that’s through diet, fitness, politics or education. But how do these messages land on us as we age, grow and suffer life’s inevitable setbacks? In this book, psychoanalyst and author Adam Phillips explores the effect of the positive and not-sopositive changes we make throughout our lives.

THE CHILD IN YOU STEPHANIE STAHL -

ENTITLED: HOW MALE PRIVILEGE HURTS WOMEN KATE MANNE -

An exploration of gender politics, this book takes a look at the many forms of male entitlement – from bodily autonomy, knowledge, power and sex. Philosopher Kate Manne looks at the culture of misogyny, from the Kavanaugh hearings to Harvey Weinstein, to explore how the idea that a privileged man is deemed to be owed something is a pervasive problem. She looks at how male entitlement can explain a wide array of phenomena and how we are all implicated.

THE WILD TRACK MARGARET REYNOLDS -

As children we develop the self-confidence and sense of trust that will help us through life as adults. But the traumas that we experience in childhood also unconsciously shape and determine our approach to life as adults. Author and psychologist Stefanie Stahl shares advice on how to befriend our inner child by overwriting old memories, resolving conflicts and forming better relationships.

Single, in her mid-forties and having experienced a sudden early menopause, Peggy quietly decides to go through the intense process of adopting a child. This memoir explores what makes a mother, and a home, and our fundamental longings for place and identity, revealing how one’s own childhood might impact on the experience of parenting and a mother’s determination to love.

THE POWER OF BAD AND HOW TO OVERCOME IT JOHN TIERNEY AND ROY F. BAUMEISTER

LIVING NATURE: CONTEMPORARY HOUSES IN THE NATURAL WORLD PHAIDON

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Have you ever wondered why a bad impression seems to linger longer than a good one? Or why negatives such as failure, losing money or a job affect us more than gaining success? It’s the ‘power of bad’, according to the authors of this interesting new book, who show that we are wired to react to bad over good. However, we can train our brains to get better at spotting our own negativity bias and use its power for good.

If living amongst the tranquility of nature, nested high up in a treetop or beside a burbling river sounds like your kind of heaven, this book, showcasing some awe-inspiring architect-designed houses in the natural world, might be just the pick-me-up you need. Each of the 50 homes is carefully chosen for its stunning location, designed to foster a connection with the essential elements of landscape.

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Five Apps… for making most of your time

Whether you’re a card-carrying procrastinator or juggling five people’s schedules, these apps will help you to get – and stay – on track

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FO C U S This app aims is a bit of a lifesaver when it comes to managing time. Whether you’re working from home or juggling multiple, time-consuming projects, Focus is a must-have for anyone who finds themselves easily getting distracted or forgetting to take occasional breaks. It structures your day into a series of 25-minute working chunks, with tasks and regular breaks included so you’re working in the most efficient way possible. You can also use the app to track tasks, from housework to homework.

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2 FA M I LYWALL If you’re finding the family’s schedule falling on your shoulders and struggling to coordinate who’s doing what when, you might want to download this app which simplifies everyone’s busy lives into one easy-to-view shared family dashboard. From activities to upcoming birthdays, shopping lists, chores, dinner planning prep for the week and even real-time location child tracking, this is the virtual version of Mrs Doubtfire every busy household needs.

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E V E RNOT E If you have what seems like one million balls spinning in the air, Evernote is your place to put all the Post-It notes floating around in your head. Whether it’s a random thought in the middle of the night or a task you remember to do when you’re out and about, this app is a cloud-based space for all the musn’t-forget thoughts and ideas you want to track and compartmentalise. This do-it-all app allows you to manage to-do lists, scan business cards, receipts, documents, and handwritten notes, plus record voice memos.

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FOR EST

P OCK ET

Are you a member of the procrastination club? You need Forest, an app that’s all about helping you save and maximise your time, encouraging you to pursue all the tasks you keep putting off. You can blacklist websites you want to avoid and when you want to get going on a task, you plant a virtual seed and watch it grow if you’re able to stay focused. If you falter or check a website you’ve previously blacklisted, your tree withers and dies instantly and if you manage to stay motivated, you can grow an entire forest.

If you’re the type of person who loves reading or watching talks or videos, then there is a high chance you probably spend time doing that when you’re meant to be busy elsewhere. Pocket is a super-handy app that will help you tackle the issue head-on. This offline reading tool has a Read It Later service that allows you to select and save articles, videos, and pictures and to view them at a more suitable time, helping you save time while not missing out on something you enjoy.

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‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished’ - Lao Tzu

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The Power Hour W h a t could you d o if you d e d ic ated just o ne ho ur each day to impro v ing y o urself a nd your l ife ? Could ge tting up o ne ho ur earlier each day be the key to u n lock ing your ful l p ote ntia l ? Annabel Harrison meets po dcaster and autho r A d rie nne He rb e rt w ho is firmly in fav o ur o f the Po wer H o ur

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hen it comes to multi-hyphenates, they don’t come much more impressive, or inspiring, than Adrienne Herbert. A personal trainer, podcaster, author, motivational speaker, Adidas ambassador and Director of Innovation & Performance at Fiit, Herbert has more than her fair share of spinning plates. Not that she’s complaining.

It’s now more than two years, and 150+ episodes, since she launched her Power Hour podcast, in which she interviews a wide range of ‘coaches, creatives, change makers and innovators’ about their

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morning routines, daily habits and rules to live by.

Listeners have enjoyed hearing from guests as diverse as Dame Kelly Holmes and chartered psychologist Fiona Murden, Ella Mills of @deliciouslyella and Ben Branson of Seedlip non-alcoholic liquors, all answering Herbert’s one simple question: ‘What could you achieve if you dedicated just one hour each day to self-improvement?’

The show is such a success that The Power Hour book was released at the end of 2020, providing muchneeded motivation during this especially challenging time. Here, I ask her what lessons have stayed with her and her advice on how to improve our daily lives.

What is Power Hour all about?

Power Hour is about reclaiming your time, and starting the day by doing something intentional, before the rest of the world demands your time and attention. The book is a practical toolkit to help you create a new routine and stick to it. If you have a goal you want to achieve or you want to change your life for the better, or you think you don’t have enough time to do anything for yourself, then the Power Hour can help you.

I often say that there is joy in every single day of my life because I’ve created a life that I love, and because I choose to look out for those ‘good’

‘We all need that time for ourselves.

You can’t give what you don’t have’

things. They can be big or small but I know that they’re there. That’s why the first hour is so critical to the rest of the day. It sets the tone for what comes next.

I deliberately use the phrase ‘Reclaiming your time’ – because it describes the intentional act of taking back something that was stolen from you. I have had lots of feedback telling me how empowering that is. So many of us don’t realise that we are on demand 24/7 until it is pointed out to us.

Have you always been a morning person?

I’d be lying if I said that I wake up every morning and jump straight out of bed, singing and dancing; however I do wake with a sense of urgency and excitement about knowing that the day ahead is based on the life I have created by myself, for myself.

I haven’t always been a morning person, though.

Often it’s more about our lifestyle rather than our biology; things like working long hours, drinking coffee, eating dinner late and watching TV in the evening can all impact our sleep and therefore our ability to get up in the morning.

For anyone struggling to get up earlier, commit to a one-week trial. Make sure you get into bed one hour earlier than you usually do for seven days. If you stick to it consistently, by day eight you’ll probably wake up before your alarm and be feeling ready to take on anything.

What feedback do you get, in terms of how people spend their own Power Hours?

It’s a real mixture; some people work on a passion project or create a new career path. Some start adding yoga, Pilates and even dance classes to their daily routine. And many use their Power Hours for meditation, journaling, listening to podcasts, reading, watching TED talks, studying. The most satisfying thing is how many people have said that

they didn’t even realise they weren’t prioritising themselves until they listened to the podcast or read the book.

You have interviewed over 150 guests on your podcast, who was a particular highlight?

I have interviewed so many truly incredible people but the one that stuck with me the most was Karl Lokko, an amazing man who I’m now lucky to call a friend. His story is inspirational. Due to the intervention of a church-run, anti-youth-violence project, Karl denounced his gang involvement and transformed his life completely. Each positive change led to another, and another, and another.

Now Karl is an activist, poet and highly successful public speaker. He has worked with Richard Branson and raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity. He speaks to young people around the world about his experiences and works to reform gang culture and fight for social justice. When I think about Karl’s story, I always remember that his willingness to learn ultimately set him on a new trajectory. Where you start does not determine where you go, or where you finish.

we have, and the only thing we can’t get more of. I still find it very hard to say ‘no’ to things, so I often think about this imagined summer countdown, and it makes me focus on how I want to spend my time.

How does the pandemic affect your Power Hour?

Having a Power Hour is more important now than ever. With many of us stuck in our home/office/ school hybrids for the first time, setting boundaries has become more challenging but is even more crucial to our mental health. It’s so easy to get caught up with work and, if you’re a parent, homeschooling; that often means our own needs get pushed aside. That’s why making a conscious decision to carve out this time for yourself, to focus on your needs and goals, and making your Power Hour non-negotiable is so important. We all need that time for ourselves to have the energy to cope with others’ demands during the day. You can’t give what you don’t have. And if nothing else, our routines are so up in the air at the moment, now is as a good a time as any to make some positive changes.

Power Hour by Adrienne Herbert is out now (£14.99)

Are there any lessons that have really stayed with you?

I listened to a podcast interview with rapper and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler. When he celebrated his 50th birthday, he had an acute realisation about the passing years and his own mortality. He worked out that, seeing as the average life expectancy of a male living in America today is 78, he only had 28 summers left. Hearing him make that calculation felt like a punch in the gut. By the same metric, I have 48 summers left. Of course, this number is undetermined – I could live a lot longer, sure, or maybe a lot less. The point is: it is a finite number, and Jesse made me realise that I can’t afford to waste a single one. Time is the most valuable thing

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How to break the procrastination cycle Procrastination and perfectionism are often two sides of the same coin. Author and psychologist Suzy Reading tells Elle Blakeman how to get your life moving again

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he irony that I’ve been putting off a piece about procrastination does not escape me. Since sitting down to write it, I have filed emails, reorganised the cutlery drawer, made four cups of tea and watched two episodes of The

Golden Girls.

In his book The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Things Done, Dr Piers Steel defines procrastination as an irrational act of self-sabotage. ‘When we procrastinate,’ he writes, ‘we know that we’re acting against our best interests.’

We’ve all been guilty of this. Researching his book, Dr Steel found that around ninety-five per cent of people admit to procrastinating at some point or another. But, for some, it can be paralysing. Around one in five of us considers our procrastination to have reached chronic levels, up from just five per cent in the 1970s.

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Consequences can be quick to stack up. A late tax payment can lead to a hefty fine. An unfiled work report can cost a promotion. There is even research to suggest that regularly putting off essential tasks affects our health, causing everything from acute headaches and digestive issues to toxic levels of stress. Yet procrastination is not about logic.

‘Procrastination is essentially irrational,’ Dr Fuschia Sirois of the University of Sheffield told the New York Times. ‘It doesn’t make sense to do something you know is going to have negative consequences.

‘People engage in this irrational cycle of chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task.’

If procrastination were simply about getting organised, time-saving technology and time managements apps would have solved the issue. Just as hunger is rarely the cause of obesity, an inability to

manage time is rarely the cause of procrastination.

It’s a way of coping with difficult emotions and the moods associated with certain tasks. A work report might be late because there is an underlying fear that it won’t be good enough. Tax payments might trigger a flush of resentment, stress or frustration.

A gym class might make us anxious that we won’t be able to keep up. These emotions can be hard to deal with, so we scroll though Facebook for an hour instead.

The highest achievers often suffer the most.

For perfectionists, the fear that something might not turn out exactly right can be enough to put off starting it altogether. Case in point, it took Kate Bush almost a decade to create her lauded album Aerial.

Behaviourally speaking, procrastination works – to a point. Negative emotions are kept at bay while we reorganise our kitchen cupboards or vacuum

the loft. But the main task does not go away, and we add to the mix the guilt and shame of putting it off – not to mention less time to complete it. This leads to further stress, anxiety and negative thoughts – known as ‘procrastinatory cognitions’ – that contribute to more delay: a self-perpetuating cycle.

During this era of crisis, many of us find it harder than ever to get on with what we need to do. ‘We’re all familiar with procrastination, but right now it feels particularly weighty,’ says psychologist and author Suzy Reading. ‘Over the past year we have been faced with constant change that has been completely out of our hands – alongside a very real threat to our health, wellbeing and financial security.

The sheer volume of competing responsibilities is overwhelming. It is no surprise that our thinking feels sticky; it might genuinely feel impossible to know where to start.’

Presented with a task that threatens our

peace of mind, our brain registers it as a threat to our wellbeing – something known as the ‘amygdala hijack’. We know full well that we are in no immediate danger from doing our taxes or answering a tricky email – quite the opposite – yet our brains are hardwired to avoid this ‘threat’ to our safety, even if that add pressure on ourselves.

There is also the issue of ‘faulty thinking’ says Reading: ‘We often overestimate what our future self will be able to produce or how much time or energy we will have.’ Researchers have suggested that a part of our brain views this future self as separate from our current one. So, by kicking the can down the road, we make it someone else’s problem, even if that ‘someone’ is us.

Reading reinforces the idea that procrastination is often nothing to do with being lazy: ‘Many women hold themselves accountable to lofty standards – standards so high that our fear of getting it wrong

stops us from trying at all. We may feel paralysed by perfectionism or fear of failing.

‘The feeling that we have to work twice as hard to get half as far runs deep. We feel we have to work like we aren’t mothers and mother like we don’t work.

‘It’s not just our own expectations; we are held to high standards across the board. Our appearance, relationship status, profession, and ability to run a tight ship at home or to throw social-media-perfect dinner parties all feel open for judgement.

‘And so we try to be the perfect wife, mother, daughter: tending to everyone’s needs while sacrificing our own. It’s no wonder we feel stuck.’

According to Reading, when we are ‘energetically low’ – the inevitable result of a year of burnout, fatigue and poor sleep – it is hard to think with clarity, to plan effectively or to be motivated.

But rather than an aggressive ‘kick-start’, Reading believes the answer lies in being kind to ourselves:

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‘For perfectionists, the fear that something might not turn out exactly right can be enough to put off starting it altogether.

‘We need compassion rather than criticism to propel us into effective action. We need time to heal our nervous system.’

For perpetual procrastinators, it’s worth thinking about why we feel stuck, to find the best way to deal with it. A lack of autonomy or a task that draws on our weaknesses rather than our strengths can be especially demotivating. But a goal we set for ourselves, anchored in our values and interests, will galvanise us.

For some people, acute time pressure garners better performance. ‘If it works for you – and doesn’t ravage your adrenals – that’s fine,’ says Reading.

Procrastination can also be a sign that you feel overwhelmed. ‘We might have beautiful clarity on what is important to us and how it needs to be tackled,’ says Reading. ‘But we know we can’t possibly do it all, so we feel like a deer in the headlights.’

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And that is especially likely right now. ‘With so many things being on hold over the past year,’ she explains, ‘you might feel swamped by incompletions or a desire to resume multiple facets of your life. You might find yourself flitting between things and not making much headway on anything, or wasting time stuck in the quagmire of deciding what to do first.’

The thought of doing something can be more exhausting than actually doing it. As philosopher William James once said, ‘Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.’

To that end, I have stuck a note on my desktop that declares, ‘Done is better than perfect’. It’s a reminder that momentum comes through action, so even a small act can propel you forwards. In the words of Dale Carnegie, ‘If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.’

PROPEL YOURSELF INTO ACTION Th e r e a r e m a n y r e a s o n s w h y w e p u t t h i n g s o f f.

Th e r e a r e a l s o m a n y s t r a t e g i e s t o g e t g o i n g . C h o o s e w h a t w o r k s fo r y o u , says psychologist and author Suzy Reading

COMPA S S ION IS KEY Gentle inner dialogue helps decision-making far more than harsh judgement. Speak to yourself as you would a friend. Addressing yourself by your name rather than ‘I’ helps you talk more kindly.

MA KE P EACE WIT H IMP ER F ECT ION ‘Done with concessions’ is better than ‘Semicomplete and perfect’. Embrace the notion of ‘good enough’. Feel it lessen the pressure and you might be surprised by the end result.

START AT TH E PO INT O F LE AST RE SISTANC E Just do something! Take action where you feel most inspired and feel how this gets the juices flowing.

DO N’T WAIT TO FE E L IN TH E MO O D… … create the mood! Use nature, movement, scent, touch, breath work or a tall upright posture to cultivate a feeling of readiness and staying power.

M INIM ISE DISTRACTIO NS B R EA K IT D OW N A N D P R IOR IT IS E Beat that overwhelmed feeling by identifying easily achievable milestones. Start knocking them down.

If your task involves sitting at a desk, take a movement break every thirty minutes to shake off fatigue.

Feel how these small accomplishments boost your sense of agency. Write or repeat the mantra: ‘I can do hard things.’

BR A IN STOR M A PAT H OF ACT ION Saying it out loud can help. And having an accountability buddy can be like rocket fuel.

R EWA R D YOUR S EL F Plan a life-affirming reward for getting started and another for seeing it through to completion.

Make your environment conducive to the task at hand. Turn off your phone. Turn off notifications.

Put in earphones with uplifting music and go for it.

TO P U P YO U R E NE RGY BANK Sometimes, if you’re stuck in mind fog, the most productive path is sleep. Eating well and getting adequate rest improves your clarity.

RE M E MBE R YO U R STRE NGTH S Think of a time you overcame the feeling of procrastination, to deliver something you were proud of. Recall the strengths you used and call upon them again to get moving.

PICTU RE TH E FINISH LINE Imagine how good you’ll feel when you see a task through to completion! Close your eyes, feel it with all your senses and channel that energy.

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‘Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door’ - Coco Chanel

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Take your time Are there enough hours in the day to change our lives for t h e b e t t e r ? Ye s , s a y s L a u r a Va n d e r k a m – i f w e a p p r o a c h t i m e management as a skill to be practised. By Annabel Harrison

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‘The biggest time-waster is not being mindful. People don’t think about what they’d really like to do with their time’

‘I

’d love to do more exercise/write a book / do a wine-tasting course… but I’m too busy.’

I’m sure I’m not alone in having used those three little words – apologetically, defensively, decisively – a significant number of times in my adult life. But by the time you reach the end of this article, you might decide – like I did after a Zoom with Laura Vanderkam – that busyness is not always indicative of a productive life filled with things that make you content. ‘It’s not a priority for me’ is more accurate.

Her advice is really for non-pandemic times.

For those in the medical and care professions, for those trying to hold down full-time jobs while home-schooling children, and for workers in industries busier than before Covid, time has never been more stretched. If that’s the case for you now, file this and read it when life is a bit closer to normality.

Vanderkam has made a career out of thinking about time – specifically, our management of it.

Time is the most used noun in the English language and we obsess over it. Finding it. Making it. Losing it. Spending it. Saving it. Cherishing it. Wasting it.

We bemoan its speed when we want the present to stay put, and curse its snail’s pace when something exciting, or daunting, is on the horizon.

In our minds, we attribute elasticity to time, and blur its boundaries with emotion. But the fact remains, as Vanderkam observes, that there are 168 hours in your week. In my week. In her week.

We all have the same amount of time.

‘When people say, “I have no free time,” what

they generally mean is, “I don’t have as much time as I want,”’ Vanderkam explains. ‘That can be true, and should be dealt with, but it doesn’t mean they have none. Or, “I never sleep.” That’s probably not true. “I work around the clock”?

Also probably not true!’

Vanderkam interviewed dozens of successful, happy people. ‘They allocate their time differently than most of us,’ she realised. ‘Instead of letting the daily grind crowd out the important stuff, they start by making sure there’s time for the important stuff.’ The result was 68 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think: a book that, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, may have changed my life.

The basic principle is this: if you sleep eight hours a night and work 50 hours a week, that leaves 62 hours. Yes, there are household chores and travel, life admin and commitments, but do they add up to 62 hours? Vanderkam would be surprised if they do.

So how do we manage to fill every hour of our time with such apparent ease? ‘The biggest time-waster is not being mindful. People don’t think about what they’d like to do with their time, 22

then they spend it on whatever is most effortless.

Those who feel like they don’t have free time are still spending two hours a night watching TV or surfing the web. It’s the end of the day, so they’re tired. It’s hard to take the initiative to think about something they’d like to do, and do it, if they haven’t planned for it.’

Vanderkam is inspiring because her advice is simple, and it works. Planning how to spend your time, for the most part, guarantees more of it is spent doing things you love, or that advance your goals.

In January, she blogged about how to create, and stick to, habits. She committed to reading one chapter of War and Peace (usually four to five pages), writing one hundred words in her 23

‘free writing file’ and doing strength training every day. And she did. The secret? ‘Make the daily demands very small – small enough to inspire no resistance. Then you just keep going. All these little somethings add up.’

I’ve started doing a two-minute exercise sequence every day. I set an alarm so I leap from my desk at 11am. So far, so good. And a lot better than fourteen minutes a week on Instagram.

In her 2016 TED Talk, Vanderkam gives the example of a successful – and, yes, busy – woman whose boiler broke. That week, she had to find seven hours that she hadn’t accounted for in order to deal with her flooded house. ‘You can choose to treat your priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater,’ says Vanderkam,

pointing out that if it was an emergency – you would find the time. ‘A lot of people resist the idea of planning, especially planning leisure time, but that is what makes leisure time happen.

And good time management is a skill, like anything else. So we get better at it the more we think about it.’

Vanderkam herself is a successful writer, author, speaker and mother to five children, aged one to thirteen. How much leisure time did she have last week? ‘I would say two hours a day.’ She went for walks and ran, visited an art museum, had a dinner date with her husband, played the piano and read.

So, what are you going to make a priority this week?

Make your own time Ev e r y o n e’ s l i fe i s d i f fe r e n t . B u t L a u r a Va n d e r k a m’ s e i g h t - s t e p p r o c e s s can help most of us spend more time on the things that matter

1.

Log your time For a week, write down what you do, as often as you remember. Think of yourself as a lawyer billing time to different projects: work, sleep, travel, chores, family time, TV etc.

2.

Tally up the categories What do you over or under-invest in?

What do you like most about your schedule?

What would you like to change?

3.

Recognise that time is a blank slate How those 168 hours are filled is largely up to you. Think about every hour of your week as a choice.

4.

Think what you’d like to do with your time Make a list of one hundred dreams, with personal and professional goals. What would you like to spend more time doing? Come back to this list often.

5.

Give goals a timeline Write the job review you’d like to give yourself at the end of 2021, including the professional items you want to accomplish. Give big personal goals a timeline; try writing next year’s ‘family holiday letter’ with highlights of the preceding twelve months. Block an hour or so into your schedule to figure out what you’d like to pull from your list of one hundred dreams and make happen this year.

6.

Break these goals down into doable steps If you don’t know your first step, then it’s research.

Running your first 10K might involve signing up for a race in six months, committing to a schedule of runs before then, and slowly building up.

7.

Plan to plan Designate a weekly planning/reviewing time in which you look at your calendar and block out steps toward your goals.

When can those runs happen? Leave open space so you’re ready for the unexpected. Try to batch little tasks together.

And match your most important work to the time when you are best able to do it.

8.

Hold yourself accountable Big dreams are great. But if you don’t create space in your life to make progress on them, they’re fantasies, not goals.

Build an accountability system – a friend, a group, an app – that will make failure uncomfortable. If you scheduled a run but it’s freezing outside, what will motivate you to get up and go? Answer that question and your time makeover will be a breeze.

Visit lauravanderkam.com to download time tracking sheets

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The battle o f l i f e a d m i n Is there anything more sisyphean than life admin? From car tax to holiday insurance to remembering the recycling collection days, these relentless tasks drain our time, energy and headspace, often without us ever formally admitting it. But could there be another way? Annabelle Spranklen explores

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A

hh, life admin. Two words we can guarantee you’ll probably say with a big sigh. There’s already a sense of dread in the phrase before we’ve even embarked on the tasks themselves.

The seemingly endless to-do lists of paying bills, chasing quotes for that plumbing work, managing kids’ homework, opening those 200 unread emails, catching up on 21 missed Whatsapp messages and

handwashing those cashmere socks (while asking yourself why you ever purchased cashmere socks?!)

According to a study in 2018, the average adult carries out 109 ‘life admin’ tasks every year with almost half the respondents admitting that they struggled to keep up with household paperwork.

A big part of the problem is that life admin seems to exist outside the constraints of time, with an invisible capacity to filter its way into our lives at

almost every angle. Since the world doesn’t value the labour involved, it makes the tasks almost impossible to factor it in when you’re planning your day, or debating whether to take on a new commitment.

Life admin itself has turned out to be one of the biggest overwhelming anxieties of our age as we procrastinate and blind panic our way into an mental health crisis, Brigid Schulte, author of

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‘In modern society, we have an obsession with staying on top of communication, of clearing our inboxes and replying at lightning speed’

Overwhelmed, says that when we are deluged by work, we tend to get tunnel vision, ‘limiting your ability to see clearly or make wise choices.’

‘Your cognitive bandwidth can literally only focus on what is directly in front of you; the emergency that’s sprung up at work, the sludge flowing out of the inbox, all the meetings that have popped up on your calendar.’

US academic and journalist Anne Helen Petersen believes many of us are experiencing what she calls ‘errand paralysis’, a term used to describe the inability to cope with simple, boring tasks – like posting a letter or organising our diaries – because of this always-on mentality and mounting anxiety.

Elizabeth Emens, a professor of law at Columbia University in New York, penned a whole book about it, titled The Art Of Life Admin. ‘I was completely overwhelmed after my second child was born, with a whole lot of work that I didn’t expect would go with parenting,’ she said in an interview upon its release.

‘I knew there would be diapers to change and mouths to feed, but it didn’t occur to me that there would be so much paperwork. And mental labour.

And it seemed largely an invisible part of parenting.’

In modern society, we have an obsession with staying on top of communication, of clearing our inboxes and replying and responding to things at lightning speed. While tech has had its advantages, it’s changed our relationship with time, we are contactable 24/7. Messages can be ‘seen’ or ‘read’ and emails have the ability to tell the sender you’ve so much as glanced at it.

‘Certain features of modern life make admin more pervasive. One of them is the rise of the bureaucratic state: we have more paperwork to complete, particularly around things like weddings, divorces, births and deaths. And another is technology, so admin reaches us with greater insistence and frequency. People expect us to respond to emails and texts; there’s an escalation of demands’, says Emens.

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Things that might have once been outsourced to an expert, such as booking a holiday or filing a tax return, have become easier to do ourselves.

Individually these tasks might seem manageable, but as a whole they amount to a lot more work. No wonder we are all feeling the pressure. We only have to look at the surge in popularity of ‘cleanfluencers’ and de-clutter experts such as Marie Kondo to see how many of us are desperately trying to find ways to keep on top.

So, what can we do about it? As Emens points out, ‘Even people who avoid life admin have some really useful strategies to teach those who get it all done – namely, that there are some tasks you shouldn’t devote masses of energy to, because it’s not an effective use of your time.’

In other words, not everything is as urgent as you think it is. Here are some ways to help you own your life admin – and not let it own you.

Lead the conversation There are ways to prevent an extra task being added to your pile and it can often be found in our language. For instance, if you seem to be the one in your friendship group whose shoulders it falls on to organise a meet-up, think about shortcutting the process by offering a more assertive response, cutting back on your admin footprint. Instead of messaging everyone about when they’re free and proposing a selection of times and places, offer a solution – ‘We will be in the park on Saturday at midday, hope to see you there.’

Prioritisation not procrastination We all have those urgent to-dos swirling around in our head except, in most cases, nothing bad happens if we do them later. Neuroscientist and author of The Organized Mind Daniel Levitin helps prioritise those tasks by carrying index cards everywhere, writing down ideas about projects under way and things to do on the cards. He sorts them into order of priority before he goes to bed, then again when he wakes up and makes adjustments. ‘It dramatically increases my focus and reduces mind wandering while I’m working.’

Don’t assume that because someone else wants something done, it needs doing When someone asks us to perform a task, it’s natural to want to jump up and perform immediately.

However, it’s important to question whether the request is something that needs doing by you and whether it can wait. Use strategic delay – some things might seem urgent at the time but by waiting, they sort themselves out.

Make time There’s no instant hack that will make that paperwork disappear or erase routine obligations like parents’ evenings and eye tests. But, if you’re not someone who’s blessed with a coterie of servants and personal assistants, this simple strategy is the next best thing: a monthly personal admin day. This is seven hours to work through three of the most pressing admin tasks of the month. Keep it free from other distractions, you’ll be surprised how much you might achieve.

Change views Working from home and staying on top of your life admin can be particularly tricky when you’re trying to do both in the same location. If you don’t have a separate home office, you’re likely to be using the same desk or kitchen table. It might seem impossible to differentiate between roles, but one solution is to sit in a different place so that you vary the view of the room or change up the vibe. Perhaps listen to music while you’re dealing with personal admin but turn it off while you’re working.

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‘They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself ’ - Andy Warhol

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Creating a life that matters When we live our lives according to our values, incredible things can happen. But how do we know what really matters to us?

Here, Gemma Jones explores how to connect with our true selves and create days that inspire and motivate 31

‘ Yo u n e e d t o l e a r n h o w t o s e l e c t y o u r thoughts just the same way you select your clothes ever y day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in yo u r l i fe s o b a d , wo r k o n t h e m i n d . T h a t ’s t h e only thing you should be trying to control’

—

L

ike so many women I know, my days are endlessly busy. A perpetual merry-goround of children, work, friends and family with the odd pause for a glass of wine and half of a box set when I’m lucky. If I’m honest, the thought of my values rarely troubles my diary planning.

‘Values are who you are in your own deepest nature, not who you think you should be in order to fit in. They’re like a compass that points us to our true north,’ says life coach Melli O’Brien.

As we journey through life, we often spend our days meeting targets, goals, expectations and the needs of our families and our jobs with relative ease. We fill up the hours quickly and this feels like living full, happy lives.

But, often, these busy lives are simply a cycle of tasks that need to get done, before we go to sleep, only to wake and repeat many of them all over again. A hamster wheel of productivity that never stops turning. We have created lives that are never-ending to-do lists, when really, we need to create to-be lists.

When we work out what we want to be, what we want our lives to count for, we get closer to our values. Only then can we start to create a life in which all our days are filled with activities that tap into those core ideals.

‘When the way you think, speak and behave

Elizabeth Gilbert

match your values, life feels very good – you feel whole, content, in your power,’ explains O’Brien.

‘But when these don’t align with your personal values, then things feel… wrong. Life feels uneasy. You feel out of touch, discontented, restless, unhappy,’ Knowing our values helps us make good decisions about what we truly want in life.

Respecting these beliefs guides our behaviour, giving us a personal code of conduct and helping us to live authentic, fulfilled lives. On a less lofty level, it can also help us to shape our days, allowing us to fill our time with activities and relationships that are good for us. By connecting us to what really matters, our values allow us to get the most out of our lives.

Roann Ghosh, a social entrepreneur and podcaster, has harnessed this way of thinking to create a new way of structuring his days. These ‘portfolio days’, as he calls them, prioritise variety and values over busyness.

‘This approach has had numerous benefits for me,’ says Ghosh. ‘It’s made me more creative and more confident, I’ve also rebooted my business, got fitter than ever and even started my podcast – a long held dream of mine. It’s also made me more grounded and resilient – and it’s helping me to get through these difficult times by offering variety and keeping me connected to

what really matters.’

The benefit of knowing our values is two-fold.

Not only does it help us to carefully craft a life filled with activities that connect us deeply to ourselves, but it also offers a guiding foundation which we can rely on when important decisions need to be made.

‘When we know our core values, life becomes far easier to navigate,’ says Carley Sime, writing in Forbes. ‘Whether we realise it or not, many of the decisions we make are often based on our values… simply put values are our puppet masters. They are core beliefs that underpin and guide our decision-making and behaviours.’

Connecting more closely with our deepest beliefs also helps us to make changes when we need to. If we know what matters to us, we can more easily understand why something doesn’t feel right, and we can act to fix a problem or shift our focus. ‘Being guided by our values may give us the courage to change situations which leave us misaligned, and inspire us to stay true to who we are or who we want to be,’ adds Simes.

Knowing your deepest convictions requires real self-knowledge – you need to be open to asking questions and brave enough to answer those questions with honesty, even if it is painful or not what you expected.

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F in d ing you r va l u e s The following steps will take you through the process of finding out what your core values are.

Remember this list is not definitive, nor set in stone – our thinking is always changing – so it’s good to do this at least once a year so you can recalibrate yourself and your focus.

To get started you will need a journal, a pen, somewhere quiet to think and an open mind.

1.Pay a tt en t ion Start by paying attention to the decisions you make throughout the day, from the big decisions to really small ones. Be curious, but not judgemental about what choices you make, and ask why you’re making them. What outcome are you looking for? Which decisions were easy? Which were hard? How did your choices make you feel? Write these down over the course of a week, so you have a record to use when you start the value-finding process.

2 . E m p t y you r min d Take a deep breath and empty your mind. It might help to do a short meditation first, something focused on openness and acceptance. True discovery won’t come just from your conscious mind, so you’ll need to shut out the noise and be able to turn inwards.

3 . Wr it e f reely In your journal, quickly and without self-editing, start to write a list of values that really mean something to you. Don’t overthink them, don’t worry if you repeat them, just write things down as they occur to you. ‘They might not come at first, but they will. It’s difficult to ask yourself something like this when your ego has been doing all of the decision making for you – but it will come. Just breathe, look inwards and write,’ says Ghosh.

4. M a ke your v a lu es pers on al ‘When I did this exercise I wrote things like “being a force for good”, adventurous and present,’ says Ghosh. ‘But yours will be personal to you – they should be for you, not for your parents, boss or partner.’ If you need some prompts, see our list of Kintsugi values below to get you started.

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5. Go deep Once these values start to appear on the page, really interrogate them. Consider happy times, sad times, proud times and fulfilling times. Thing about when things were hard or uncomfortable, then reflect on the key moments in your life, both painful and joyful, what really stands out?

6.Peak m oments One great way to get to the heart of your values is this brilliant exercise from Melli O’Brien to recall a ‘peak moment’ when you felt totally and completely yourself. A time when you were in your element, when everything felt aligned, and you were happy and fulfilled. Describe this moment for yourself in detail and then identify the key values that this moment represents. In her own life, O’Brien describes a moment from a sharing circle on a retreat she was running. ‘There were tears of laughter and tears of joy…’ she says. ‘We all ended up crying together! It felt so intimate, real and deeply connecting. I felt like I was doing exactly what I should be doing.’ From this moment, O’Brien wrote down the values that stood out from this peak – connection, making a contribution to people’s lives, being open, vulnerable and authentic, feelings of courage and a deep sense of aliveness – and then worked on these values through the process.

7. Groups and them es By the time you’ve finished, you’ll likely have between 20 and 40 values. Now group them into sections – finance, work, family, health, creativity, personality and so on. Once you have these words or phrases together, pick one that best represents the group. For instance, you might have transparency, timeliness, candour, listening and truth in one group – for which the words either respect or integrity would be a good central theme. You can also use phrases if these speak to you more profoundly – such as leading with integrity or respect for myself and others, always. There are no rules, these are simply the words that make your heart leap with possibility and joy.

8 . H o ne a n d ref in e Once you have worked your values down into sets of groups, write them all down and rank them in order of importance.

This is often the most challenging part, and you may need to do it in multiple sittings, returning to the list over the course of a week. Don’t be afraid to go through the process several times over. Consider what values are essential to your life and to supporting your sense of self. Keep going until you have between five and ten values that make you feel excited and connected when you read them.

9. T im e t o apply Now, it’s time to see how your values are represented in your life and start making changes to your life to align better with those values, rather than a one long dirge of emails, zoom meetings or household chores. It won’t be an instant change, this is an ongoing process that will change over time, so keep being open to your values and where they sit in your life.

Each morning, start by taking ten minutes to list and score all of your aims and activities for that day or week against your values. This is a great way to see if your day reflects your values. ‘If one of your values is to be more mindful about your energy, perhaps your seven back-to-back Zoom meetings are not the best way to uphold that,’ suggests Ghosh.

From here, you can work to slowly turn each day into a portfolio of activities that represent your true values. Ghosh suggests moving a lunchtime meeting so you can uphold your value to be healthy and cook a slow lunch instead. Or make emails or social media wait until after your morning meditation. ‘The key is to mix it up. Variety will energise you.

Far from slacking off, portfolio days make us more productive, creative, a better colleague. Keeping it closely linked to your values will make you consistent and enrich you in more ways than you can imagine.’

10. Smal l steps It’s important to remember that you don’t have to quit your job, move house or change your entire life to make a worthwhile change. You can be creative about how you organise your day and respond to colleagues, clients, friends and family in a way that doesn’t compromise you. Put limits on the length and amount of meetings, factor in real time for lunch, schedule exercise, walk your children to school every day, see friends for morning coffee, prioritise meditating, creativity and quiet time and so on. The changes may feel awkward at first, but as they bring you closer to yourself it will start to feel natural and empowering, and you will get better and better at planning a day that fills your heart with light and connection.

Kin ts ug i Values Your values are your own, don’t restrict them to what you think they should be. But if you need some inspiration, these are some of our favourites to get you started.

Deeper connections; service to others; creative self-expression; a commitment to spirituality; health and vitality; integrity always; excitement and adventure; curiosity and openness; surrounded by beauty; leading with compassion; always learning; to be mindful first; making a difference; living bravely; financial independence; a good example to others; creating change; meaningful relationships, putting family first; respecting the boundaries of myself and others; being in nature; leading with courage; at one with myself; empowering others; living with intention.

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Lagom: The secret to balance The Swedish concept of lagom

has been

hailed as the key to finding balance and happiness. But can it help us find more time in our busy lives? Emma Johnson

O

ur time is precious. Feeling overwhelmed is common. Stress is on the rise. The juggle is real.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

If we can balance all the things in our lives so not one of them takes over, we can finally make time for the things that matter.

In Sweden, balance is a way of life, and knowing how to make the most of your time is a cultural imperative. The Swedes still face challenges, problems and worries, but the concept of lagom offers a wonderful way of removing complications and creating space for joy.

The best way to think of lagom is ‘not too much, not too little, just the right amount’. That means no diet and denial, but also no overindulging or bingeing.

It means neither frugality nor excess. You buy what you need, and are conscious when you spend. You talk, but not too much, and not over anyone else. You respect people’s space and boundaries, and they, in turn, respect yours.

And what goes around comes around. The more the Swedes moderate their impact on the

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environment, on their spending and on the space they occupy, the more they learn to respect each other, and the more time they have for each other and for themselves.

It helps that the country’s quality of life is among the best in the world. A family utopia, Sweden has a strong welfare state, its people are well paid and the working hours are shorter. There is generous holiday and parental leave, there is subsidised childcare, and there is balance in everything from free education to extensive recycling. The average Swede works 1,644 hours per year, compared to an average of 1,776 across the rest of the world. Swedish parents are entitled to 480 days of parental leave when a child is born, and get paid time off to care for sick children.

This is a product of lagom. The respect ethic that runs through it gives people the power to make their own choices, because they will likely make good ones.

‘The mantra of aiming for just enough at all times comes with benefits for our inner psychological and emotional world, as well as society at large,’ writes Linnea Dunne in her book Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living. ‘It’s about affording our

consciousness the space to just be, and allowing enough latitude for change.’

The art of lagom is doing and having less, and being economical, thoughtful and intentional with the time you have. It is a skill. ‘Lagom shapes us into more mindful creatures in tune with our bodies and our needs,’ says Lola A. Åkerström, author of Lagom: The Swedish Art of Living Well. ‘It sharpens our curiosity and consciousness, and it provides questions that help us better assess what we choose to bring into our lives, be they material items or relationships.’

Lagom encourages us to respect ourselves and others. You value everyone’s time as precious, including your own, and so you do not waste it. This respect, central to lagom, says that we should be able to comfortably share space without devaluing others and their time. It also helps to create respectful boundaries around your space and time, and that of others.

‘We need to do what we say and mean what we do,’ says Åkerström. ‘This can be accomplished by not over-promising. By creating logical parameters around what we can and can’t do, we can let our actions speak for themselves.’

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How can this translate to our day-to-day lives?

Be on time Punctuality is key to lagom. When Swedes meet, they pick a time and stick to it. Being late would mean imposing the value of your time on someone else’s.

‘Punctuality is the single most important thing you can do to respect the time of others,’ says Åkerström.

Learn to say no ‘No’ is used freely and often in Sweden. Foreigners may see this bluntness as rudeness but it is the exact opposite. ‘Yes or no questions get yes or no answers,’ explains Dunne in Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living. ‘You can't criticise Swedes for wasting anyone’s time.’

Speak less, listen more Random chit-chat and stating the obvious is discouraged. When Swedes speak, they mean something, and they spend as much time listening as they do talking. There is a focus on pausing and listening to each other, seeing and hearing more, missing less. ‘There are so many opportunities and details that we miss when we dominate conversation and take up space,’ says Åkerström.

Make time for fika Stopping regularly while working is another important element. Fika is the practice of having breaks to talk to others, to share food and coffee, to pause. These breaks often last no longer than fifteen minutes, but each marks a simple intersection in the day, breaking long pockets of working into effective bursts of energy. Again, balance is the key: work and pleasure are both good in moderation.

Work well The Swedes work with intention and dedication, but stop when they need to and don’t allow themselves to overwork. Employees are actively encouraged to leave on the dot of 5pm, and it would be considered understandable to reject taking on work if it would negatively affect the work you have already. A culture of efficiency means that emails are concise and meetings are focused.

Curate your belongings Reducing choices is a great way to reclaim time, which explains the Swedish trend towards minimalism. Curating a wardrobe and home that contain only pieces you love is a way to balance time doing and time being. If your wardrobe contains only items that you love, that you want to wear often and that you know how to pair, it saves time getting dressed. ‘Moderate conscious consumption makes decluttering easier,’ says Dunne. ‘It makes your home a more peaceful place.’

These small adjustments to your day and way of living can have a big impact. If you save minutes or hours here and there, your day opens up with possibility. ‘Those small conscious changes pull us closer to that core balance where the most important things in our lives are as they should be,’ says Åkerström. ‘They become that blanket of comfort and contentment that blooms around us. This truly is the sweetest secret to living well.’

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‘There is more to life than simply increasing its speed’ - Mahatma Gandhi

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Stop the clocks M a n y o f u s m a y f e e l w e h a v e l o s t a y e a r.

Emma Johnson looks at how our idea of time can change for the better

T

he past year seems to have been endless, yet almost nonexistent. ‘I feel like I’ve lost an entire year,’ a friend told me. ‘How is it spring again?’ said another. But when we look back at 2020, we recall how lonely hours dragged and weeks of home-schooling crawled. Government announcements about extended lockdown may as well have said ‘Stay indoors forever’, yet Christmas hurtled towards us as quickly as ever.

How is it that time has felt so elastic? How is it that days and weeks felt painfully slow, yet we struggle to grasp that an entire year has gone by since we began talking about Covid?

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‘When we live life in a linear way, moving through every day as though it should be the same, life passes us by,’ explains Kirsty Gallagher in her book

Luna Living: Working with the magic of the moon cycles. ‘Every day blends into the next with nothing to pause or break it up, except perhaps a weekend or an occasional holiday. We blink and we miss it.

And before we know it, we’re at the end of another year of unfulfilled dreams and goals.’

Gallagher’s words are a sobering indictment of our obsession with counting down time. We are conditioned to see time as linear, to count in months, days, weeks and hours, from past, to

present, to future.

Viewing time in this way restricts our lives emotionally and spiritually. We know from the practices of mindfulness and spirituality that focusing on the present can help us feel more content, more connected to ourselves. Theologians have long considered the unspooling of time a barrier to peace and joy. ‘There exists only the present instant,’ wrote Meister Eckhart. ‘There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.’

Perhaps it is time to think differently about time.

If we do, what might we learn about ourselves?

‘There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence’

THE MIND IN TIME

THE MEASURE OF TIME

Time is a human construct. Unlike gravity, it is not set down in the laws of nature. We think of it as an arrow, going from past to present to future. When we die, we write only two dates on our headstones: the beginning and the end. And we draw a line between them. Time begins, passes, and ends.

But this is a deeply reductive way of thinking about the quirky, complicated, mysterious beauty of human existence.

What do we mean when we say time passes? Do we move through time, or does time move through us?

According to Carlo Rovelli, author of The Order of Time, the world is a collection of events that are not ordered. To make sense of our lives, we have created a linear understanding of time, in which the past cannot be changed, the future is uncertain and we are on an imagined line between them.

‘We conventionally think of time as something simple and fundamental,’ Rovelli says. ‘The past is fixed; the future is open. And yet all of this has turned out to be false.’

For centuries, we measured time by reckoning dates, or looking to the stars, the moon, the seasons, sundials and water clocks. When we put numbers to time – created days and minutes, clocks and calendars – we transformed the fluidity of time into an immovable mechanism. Now we measure success by numbers devised centuries ago that shifted our view of the world from something organic, and connected to nature, to something rigid, detached and eventually monetised.

‘Before imperialists descended on the United States, there were no clocks,’ writes Teen Vogue education columnist Mary Retta. ‘No second hands tick tick ticking our lives away.’ But now, she says, ‘Labouring under capitalism… is to be asked: “How much is sixty minutes of survival worth to you?” And to answer: “For how long must I labour to earn the right to survive?”’

As time passes, we become more desperate to keep up, more regretful of the past, more anxious about the future. ‘The secret of time lies in this slippage that we feel on our pulse…’ says Rovelli.

THE SHIFTING SANDS OF TIME In Ethiopia, time is measured with calendar featuring twelve months with thirty days and a thirteenth with only five. Consequently, the Ethiopian calendar is years behind the Gregorian one that is in use across most of the rest of the world. It’s 2013 in Ethiopia this year. Meanwhile, the whole of China uses the same time, whereas the US has time zones that span several hours.

In Sommarøy – a Norwegian island village in the north of the country – the sun neither rises in the winter nor sets in the summer. This prompted a campaign to remove the concept of time entirely. ‘Children and young people still have to go to school, but there is room for flexibility,’ campaign leader Kjell Ove Hveding told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. ‘All over the world, people are characterised by stress and depression.

In many cases this can be linked to the feeling of being trapped, and here the clock plays a role.’

‘This is what it means to think about time.’

Our fear of time passing is intimately linked to our fear of death – something that Rovelli calls an ‘error of evolution’. Animals, he observes, experience the terror of death at the moment a predator strikes, but it is instantaneous; they do not live with the terror all of the time. Yet humans do.

We need to come to a new understanding about time: one that allows us to move at our own speed, governed by desire and intention, not money or timeframes or avoiding the path into the afterlife. ‘I do not fear death,’ he says. ‘Job died when he was “full of days”… I too would like to arrive at the point of feeling full of days, and to close with a smile the brief circle that is our life.’

THE CIRCLING Part of understanding our place in time is in thinking about where we sit in the story of our life.

Do we move through it or does it move around us? The Aboriginal people, who for centuries did not use numbers, perceive events not as linear but in a circular pattern. An individual is at the centre of these circles, and events are placed according to their importance to that individual and to the larger community. The more significant events are, effectively, perceived as being closer in time. This profoundly different way of thinking allows us to hold the important parts of our lives close, even if they are distanced from us in conventional time.

This cyclical construct can be found across the world. ‘Navajo time is circular,’ says speaker and writer Mark Charles. ‘If an event is passed or missed, there is not as much concern. The understanding is that the event will usually come around again.

In this perception of time, life is organised by completing tasks or events. Value and importance is communicated not by starting or arriving on time, but by staying until the interaction is over or the task is complete.’ There is no beginning or ending: only what is, what has always been, and what will always be. Death is not the end, but simply another milestone.

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‘We need to come to a new

understanding about time: one that

allows us to move at our own speed’

CHANGING SEASONS The circling of time emphasises events, celebrations and festivals – many of which come around regularly – rather counting off days of our lives. And this way of thinking can be more easily understood by considering the importance of the seasons.

We recognise only four seasons. But, for the Druids, the seasons were more nuanced, offering a way to move through the year: an eternal circle of loss and renewal. Katherine May’s book /Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times/ touches on the eightfold Druid year, which begins with rebirth at the Winter Solstice. Imbolc, on the first day of February, is when early snowdrops show.

In mid-March, Alban Eilir – the spring equinox – is celebrated. On May Day, Beltane sees spring in full bloom. The end of June brings the Summer Solstice, followed by the Autumnal Equinox in September. Samhain heralds the arrival of winter – and is celebrated on Halloween – before the Winter Solstice returns in December.

‘This means that we have something to do every six weeks,’ says modern Druid Phillip Carr-Gomm.

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‘The pattern of festivals gives a rhythm to the year, offering a way through even the darkest periods.’

Inside these circling seasons we find the moon’s monthly wax and wane. This offers another way to think differently about days and weeks. Working in time with the moon gives us a natural rhythm,

creating all-important spaces for both rest and creativity. We can use the gradual changing of the moon to mark periods of activity and creativity, as well as periods of quietness and introspection.

Rather than seeing our lives as moving from one day to the next, we can consider the ebb and flow of our seasonal, monthly energies – acknowledging the times of low mood, of needing solitude and craving sleep, because we know the brighter days of positivity and vitality will soon come again. We stop thinking in terms of 24 hours, seven days, four weeks, 12 months… and instead become in tune with the rise and fall of our mental and physical energies, using this as a measure of our lives.

Our ancestors based calendars on the sun, the moon and the seasons. We can use this ancient sequence to keep ourselves in check and measure our lives not by minutes and days but by renewal and discovery.

‘Time is not an arrow but a shimmering pool,’ says Retta. ‘We submerge and take laps around the boundaries of aliveness. We have lived these days before, it seems, and we will live them all again.’

THE MIND IN TIME The crucial point we need to understand about time, is that it is a human construct, unlike gravity for example, it is not something set down in the laws of nature. Our concept of time, and the way we see it, is down to us entirely. It is easy to think of time shaped like an arrow, going from past to present to future. When we die, we write only two dates on our headstones, the beginning and the end. And we draw a line in between them. For us, time begins, passes, and then ends.

But isn’t this a deeply reductive way of thinking about the quirky, complicated, mysterious beauty that is the human existence? And what do we mean when we say time passes? Do we move through time, or does time move through us?

According to Carlo Rovelli, author of The Order of Time, we are the ones turning. The world is a collection of events which are not ordered in time. In our effort to make sense of our lives we have created a linear understanding of time – whereby the past cannot be changed, the future remains uncertain and we sit in the present, somewhere on an imagined line between past and future.

According to Rovelli this is flawed thinking. ‘We conventionally think of time as something simple and fundamental that flows uniformly independently from everything else, from the past to the future, measured by clocks and watches. The past is fixed, the future is open. And yet, all of this has turned out to be false.’

Rovelli’s book is a head-spinning dive into the world of relativity and quantum physics – but when thinking about reframing time for our own understanding, it offers a bold invitation to think differently – and perhaps to open new doors to possibility.

THE SHIFTING SANDS OF TIME Did you know that time moves slower at sea level and faster on the mountains?

According to Rovelli, advanced machines that have established that if two people live apart at the top and bottom of a mountain, after ten years, more time will have passed for the mountain dweller than his friend. ‘The one who stayed down has lived less: aged less…he has had less time to do things, his plants have grown less. Lower down there is simply less time than at altitude,’ explains Rovelli. ‘Time passes more slowly in some places, more rapidly in others.’

In Ethiopia, time is measured with an entirely different calendar to the rest of world – made up of 12 months, each of 30 days, and a thirteenth month, with only five days. That means, the Ethiopian calendar is several years behind the Gregorian calendar (which is mostly used, worldwide). It’s 2013 in Ethiopia right now. While in China, the entire country is on the same time, making it the largest single time-zone area in the world, compared to the US whose various time-zones span a four-hour period.

Elsewhere, on Sommaroy – a Norwegian island in the very North of the country where the sun neither rises in the winter, nor sets in the summer – a campaign has started to remove the concept of time entirely. ‘Children and young people still have to go to school, but there is room for flexibility. One does not need to be put into a box in the form of school or working hours,’ says Kjell Ove Hveding, leader of the Time-Free Zone campaign on Sommaroy. ‘All over the world, people are characterised by stress and depression,’ he told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. ‘In many cases this can be linked to the feeling of being trapped, and here the clock plays a role. We will be a time-free zone where everyone can live their lives to the fullest.’

THE MEASURE OF TIME For centuries we have used other means to measure time – reckoning dates, solar years, lunar days, moon cycles, the seasons, the stars, sundials, water clocks. But when we put numbers to time, when we created days and minutes, clocks and calendars, we locked the fluidity of time into an immovable mechanism which marches relentlessly onwards.

Now we measure our successes by pockets of time, arbitrary numbers devised centuries ago which shifted a view of the world from something more organic and connected to nature, to something rigid, detached, and eventually monetised.

‘Before imperialists descended on the United States, there were no clocks,’ writes Teen Vogue education columnist Mary Retta. ‘No second hands tick tick ticking our lives away.’ But now, says Retta, living under capitalism has created a damaging link between money and time. ‘Labouring under capitalism…is to be asked: ‘How much is 60 minutes of survival worth to you?’ And to answer: ‘For

how long must I labour to earn the right to survive?’ Eve added to it, as we attach a sense of importance to the likes food, walks and friends on social media.

As time passes, we become more desperate to keep more anxious about the future. ‘The secret of time lies in t pulse, viscerally in the enigma of memory, in anxiety abou is what it means to think about time.’

For many of us, alternative ideas of time offer real po but we meet a stumbling block when we consider the e passing is intricately linked to our fear of death, somethin evolution’. Animals, he says, for instance, experience the a predator attacks, but it is instantaneous, they do not live And yet as humans, we do.

Our relationship with time is rooted in regret and nostal or fear about the future. We need to come to a new unde allows space for us to move at our own speed, governe money or timeframes or avoiding the path of life into afte Rovelli. ‘Job died when he was “full of days”. It is a won like to arrive at the point of feeling full of days, and to clo that is our life.’

THE CIRCLING

Part of understanding our place in time, is in thinking abo our life, do we move along it, or does it move around u for centuries did not have numbers in their language at all, They place events in a circular pattern of time – an indiv time-circles and events are placed in time according to t individual and the larger community. Effectively, the more as being ‘closer in time’. This is a profoundly different w allows us to consider that the important parts of our lives are distanced from us in conventional time.

And this cyclical construct of time can be found across culture, time is considered circular, a sphere or a series of e at their centre. Mark Charles, a Navajo speaker, writer, Navajo time is measured not by numbers but by events.

‘Navajo time is circular. If an event is passed or miss reason for concern. The understanding is that the event again. In this perception of time, life is organised by com and importance is communicated not by starting or arrivi the interaction is over or the task is complete.’ In Native beginnings or endings, only what is, what always has bee them, death is not the end, but simply another milestone

THE SEASONS

The circling of time puts an emphasis on marking events of which come round every few months - rather than marking o way of thinking that can be more easily understood by consideri a natural shift and regeneration that deeply reinforces this idea o We however only recognise four seasons, but for the D distinct than that, offering a real way to move through th of loss and renewal. In Katherine May’s book Wintering, s Carr-Gomm about the eightfold way of the Druid year, Winter Solstice. This is followed by Imbolc, on the first d snowdrops show, and in mid-March the Spring Equinox o May Day, Beltane recognises spring in full bloom, and t end of June, followed by the Autumnal Equinox next in S true arrival of Winter – and is celebrated at Halloween - b in December.

‘This means that we have something to do every six weeks period of time, you always have the next moment in sight rhythm to the year, offering a way through even the darkest p Samhain, knowing that in six weeks’ time I’ve got the solstic I’m moving into spring.’

Inside this circling of seasons, we also find the moon’s mo to think differently about the days and weeks. Working in time of a natural rhythm, creating the all-important spaces neede can use the gradual changing of the moon, to Just as our ancestors had calendars based around the su considered a cyclical flow of time, we too can use this an ourselves in constant check and ensure that we are always ta direction of our lives, measured not my minutes and days

Can we add a quote page here

‘You can have it all.

Just not all at once’ - Oprah Winfrey

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Can making the right changes to our external environment help support our health, attract wealth and invite more happiness into our lives?

Almost certainly, says Kintsugi founder Al Reem Al Tenaji. Here, we take a look at the ancient Chinese art of feng shui

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‘Feng Shui is all about the

subconscious interaction between planetary and mental energies’ - S tefan Emunds

I

n her book Exuberance: The Passion for Life, Kay Redfield Jamison notes that we've formulated many words for sadness and sorrow, but few words for having a passion for life. When we discover our passion, our ‘exuberance’ as Jamison terms it, our energy changes. We are open to life’s possibilities.

But what if it could be the other way round?

What if our energy is actually blocking our path to joy, to exuberance?

In the ancient Chinese art of feng shui, which translates to ‘wind and water’, there is a belief that our external environment has a huge effect on how we feel. Its goal is to enhance the flow of chi (life force or spiritual energy), and to create harmonious environments that support health, attract wealth and invite happiness.

Feng shui is about balance – the yin and the

In feng shui, the world is split into five elements, each with its own energy and traits: Wood: creativity and growth Fire: leadership and boldness Earth: strength and stability Metal: focus and order Water: emotion and inspiration

Working to balance these five elements properly in your home can help their corresponding traits to thrive in your life.

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yang. The Yin is a feminine energy, associated with night, coolness and quiet. The Yang is masculine, it is heat, day and socialability. By making sure that there is an equal amount of both energies around us, we can achieve a calming balance that runs throughout our lives. As Lada Ray notes, ‘In its highest and purest form, good feng shui signifies perfect alignment between inner and outer worlds.’

Underpinning the philosophy of feng shui is the idea that there are invisible forces around us that sap our energy and reduce our mental capacity just by being around them. Anyone who has ever lived or worked in a cramped office or small apartment will understand how hard it can be to thrive in such environments. As author and feng shui expert Laura Staley puts it: ‘Too many things in too small a space cut off flow, block creativity, and bury beauty, much like a bad cold

can make it hard to breathe.’ When we don’t have enough light, air or space, the world can feel oppressive. Feng shui is the art of clearing those forces.

‘Every aspect of your life is anchored energetically in your living space, so clearing clutter can completely transform your entire existence,’ says feng shui expert Karen Kingston.

By following a few simple but powerful principles to carve the right environment, feng shui experts believe that you can improve nearly every aspect of life. It doesn’t matter if you have a five-story townhouse or a one-bedroom apartment, the philosophy really can work for anyone.

‘If you create a balanced representation in your home, it can reflect how you’re reacting to outside experiences. It becomes a metaphor for everything in life,’ says Laura Cerrano of Feng Shui Manhattan.

Inspired by all I had heard, I decided to apply the principles of feng shui to my home office. I began by decluttering, removing anything that was not serving me – anything broken or with negative connotations (unwanted gifts and so on). I then moved my desk to take a ‘commanding position’ in the room – facing the door, with my desk chair set to the right posture. Experts recommend that around fifty per cent of the desktop be occupied so I added some inspirational books and several new plants, inviting more creative wood energy into my workspace. The plants perform a dual purpose as there is also a lot of research to suggest that the colour green has a positive impact on both productivity and wellbeing, being associated with fresh energy and a new start.

The process took less than a day but made such a difference to my working life, the space feels lighter, more open. The decluttering feels internal

as much as external – negative thoughts and fears that have been occupying my mental energy have been dramatically reduced. Things feel calmer inside and out.

A few weeks later and I find that the positive effects are not only lasting, but they also gain in momentum. With more awareness I can see when things start to feel out of balance. I started meditation for clarity, journaling to organise my thoughts on paper, and taking time each morning to consider my priorities and needs. I learned to challenge negative self-talk to replace it with positive ones. I started spending time more in nature, limit social media intake (something that feels designed to make us out of balance) and regulate my sports and wellness routine to focus on incomplete dreams and goals. Feng shui has been the catalyst to energise and transform so many areas of my life.

Wa y s t o f e n g s h u i y o u r l i f e

Home • • • • • • • • • •

Keep the five elements in balance – metal, fire, wood, earth and water Fix anything broken or chipped Keep the entryway clear and welcoming Let in as much natural light as possible Open windows every day – even in winter Replace any broken light bulbs Don’t place mirrors opposite each other (this bounces the chi back and forth) Have a strong front door that opens wide into the home without creaking.

Get rid of anything you don’t find beautiful or useful Invite nature into your home as much as possible

Life •

Start a journal

•

Take meditation breaks

•

Say no to things more often

•

Go barefoot

•

Eat a rainbow of fruits and vegetables

Bedroom •

Invest in a headboard

•

Minimise electronics

•

Keep anything work related outside

•

Avoid sharp edges

•

Don’t have your bed close to the door

•

Don’t keep books in here

Office •

Remove all clutter

•

Face your chair towards the door (the door should never be behind you)

•

Use desks or chairs with curved edges

•

Add plants but remove any dead plants straight away and stay clear of anything spikey such as cacti

•

Add paintings, plants and wood elements to attract positive wealth energy to this area 50

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COMFORT AND JOY How can we bring tranquillity into our homes? Annabel Harrison speaks to Scandi Rustic co-author Rebecca Lawson about embracing the calming and nature-inspired elements of Scandinavian style

T

hough home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to’, wrote Charles Dickens. As we come to the end of a year of on/ off lockdowns, the weight of the word ‘home’ holds as much potency today as it did for Mr Dickens, two centuries ago. Millions of people have spent weeks and months of the last year confined within the same four walls and it has given us, among many things, pause for thought about what those four walls mean to us.

Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like home. Home sweet home.

These well-worn sayings, and many similar ones in other languages, are embroidered on cushions, engraved into key rings and displayed in frames by people all over the world because ‘home’ is special. It is the lighthouse of our lives, a welcoming, reassuring place where memories are made, challenges faced and milestones celebrated. It matters. ‘And now, more than ever, our homes are our sanctuaries, the places we retreat to for comfort and calm.’

Rebecca Lawson would know. She and Reena Simon, both award-winning interiors bloggers, have collaborated to create Scandi Rustic, a book featuring beautiful homes across Scandinavia and the UK; these share ‘a feeling of coziness and warmth that nurtures a sense of wellbeing and contentment’. And there’s never been a better time for embracing the Danish concept of hygge (pronounced hoo-guh). ‘It translates as finding coziness and contentment through the simple things in life,’ Rebecca says.

‘Many Scandinavians treat their homes as a hygge retreat and would rather spend time at home than anywhere else. Creating a cozy living environment is centred around establishing a connection with your home and everything in it.’

Surely creating a happy, hygge-filled home is

on everyone’s wish list, especially after the year we’ve just had. How can we ensure our home is ajoyful, peaceful place in which we can recharge and find our balance, despite the turbulence and unpredictability of the world outside? For Rebecca and Reena, it is by turning to the traditional, pared-

back elements of Scandinavian design, including plenty of natural materials and textures for an end result ‘that’s homely, relaxed and inviting’. It was their affinity for this way of life – and Instagram – that brought them together serendipitously, just four years ago. ‘We were both on maternity leave,’ explains Rebecca, ‘while renovating our first family homes and we just clicked. It feels like we’ve always known each other in this strange way. We have very similar life experiences and lots of things in common.’

This synergy meant that while many of us had lofty aspirations during the first lockdown to learn a language, master bread-baking or write that book we’d always wanted to, Rebecca and Reena actually did it – even more impressive when one adds the homeschooling of three children each into the equation. Scandi Rustic has resonated with those who yearn for a home that is welcoming and inviting, and which nurtures our senses.

‘What we’re seeing, after this year in general,’ Rebecca tells me, ‘is that home has become much more important to people. Reena always talks about “creating a home that you never want to leave’” which this year ironically became true. A lot of people are re-evaluating where they live and what their home offers them, particularly in terms of space and connection to the outdoors’.

The houses featured in Scandi Rustic, with neutral colour schemes and minimalist, monochrome décor, have space and style in spades, all chosen by Rebecca and Reena to illustrate their advice about instilling our homes with the tranquillity we want, and crave.

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Colours Light and bright, soft and natural, dark and moody; the Scandinavians gravitate towards calming shades of white and grey, natural hues such as blush, terracotta and linen and darker, earthier tones including green, blue and rust. A considered palette, says Rebecca, is one of the building blocks of a room. ‘Settle on two or three core colours, repeat them to create a sense of rhythm, continuity and flow, and add interest by layering textures of the same colour – fabrics and materials, soft and hard’. The colours we surround ourselves with can have a beneficial effect on our health and happiness, evoking feelings of contentment and calm.

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Materials Along with colours, materials are an essential component of room design. Rebecca and Reena adore the way Scandinavian houses reflect a landscape comprising long coastlines, mountains, glimmering lakes and shady forests. You might not have mountains or forests on your doorstep, but what you can do is use simplicity, comfort, texture and tactility as guiding principles. Rebecca suggests listing the key materials you’re going to be working with or the materials you already have. ‘Try not to include too many. Scandinavian homes work really well because they tend to use a refined number of materials consistently throughout to give a sense of calm and tranquillity.’ The owners of the homes featured in Scandi Rustic, Rebecca adds, ‘were very good at drawing the outside in and mirroring nature within the home, through their use of wood, stone and foliage.’

Light From boosting productivity and aiding healthy eye development to helping us sleep better and improving one’s mood, the benefits of daylight in the home are many. Rebecca and Reena agree that maximising natural light in our homes is crucial – and you can use spacing cleverly to capitalise on views, Rebecca adds – but artificial lighting is essential too. We should incorporate a lighting scheme into our planning from the outset and not just as an afterthought. ‘It keeps homes feeling warm and cheerful and illuminates our daily activities throughout the winter months, when daylight is in short supply and the nights are long.’

Corners of calm Those with small children may have the same preferred corner of calm as Rebecca. ‘In my old house it was the bathroom.

It had a lock on it! At the end of the day I’d retreat to that small space where I could create atmosphere and tranquillity, through lighting candles to soft music, while having a bath in that peaceful space. Bathrooms are great for creating that atmosphere, almost like a spa within your home. The bedroom is another room where you can create a space to hide away and hunker down – make it warm and special.’

As we look forward to 2021, with less certainty than ever about what the year will bring, one thing is certain; we can conjure up within our homes a pocket of calm in a chaotic world, and it’s something on which we’ll never regret spending time and effort.

Scandi Rustic by Rebecca Lawson and Reena Simon (£19.99, published by Ryland Peters and Small) is out now. Follow @ malmo_and_moss and @hygge_for_home on Instagram for more interiors inspiration.

Photography by Benjamin Edwards © Ryland Peters & Small

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‘Time is what we want most, but what we use worst’ - William Penn

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The art of rest L i v ing in a w orld tha t va lue s pro ductiv ity o v er wellbeing, it ’s no wo nder w e s truggle to s w itch off s ay s autho r E mily J ackso n. H ere, we lo o k at how to re st mo re, and rest better

‘How are you?’

‘Good, busy, diary crazy right now. You? ‘Frantic. Might start sleeping in my office clothes.’

‘Definitely. I’ll call you when I have a moment…...’

A

version of this conversation has been playing out in my female relationships for a decade or so now. We’re busy, we’re all so busy. And it’s making us restless about rest. Switching off is not something that comes naturally to us anymore. In a society that values work over leisure, status is awarded to those who can demonstrate just how full their lives are – the Instagrammable dinner

‘Must catch up soon when things slow down’

parties, the children’s artwork on the fridge, the promotions and work trips. This places value in what we have done rather than how we have felt.

Any psychologist could tell you that we are not designed to live this way, and it is coming at a serious cost. ‘Our normal and regular pace was never meant for humans, but instead, a machine-level pace fuelled by capitalism’s call to create wealth by any means necessary,’ says

Tricia Hersey, an activist who founded The Nap Ministry in 2016 to examine and promote the ‘liberating power of naps’.

In modern society, burn out, chronic conditions and mental health problems are all on the rise. Our time is too scheduled, too full, too much. In the wake of a year-long pandemic that saw us all with enforced periods of empty time, we need to look at how we spend our time and how we can get more rest.

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Re sista n ce to re st So why can’t we switch off? One reason is the thinking that more rest means less time to do what needs to be done, that increased working hours automatically equals increased productivity. ‘We think of rest as a negative space defined by absence of work but it’s really much more than that,’ said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a Silicon Valley consultant and author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less in a Guardian interview in 2017. When Pang took a year-long sabbatical, he reported achieving more than he ever had in a full year of work, and now he believes that the more rest we get, the more we can actually get done. ‘We think more hours equals more productivity. This is an assumption – a mistake – that we’ve been making for a very long time. And now there’s more than a century’s worth of work that shows overwork in the long run is bad for people and organisations and also bad for productivity.’

Rest also raises an equality issue, with 59

research showing that on average, women rest much less than men. A study by the Office of National Statistics in 2017 found that women had up to seven hours a week less leisure time than men, and it’s a gap that has been growing in the past two decades. Caught in a cycle of work, housework, childrearing and family admin, which despite female advancement in the workplace still largely falls to women (research shows that women are currently doing around 60 per cent more in the home), women are not only left with little time to rest, but have become to conditioned to find it almost impossible to do so.

‘We yearn for rest but then feel anxious that we are being lazy,’ says Claudia Hammond in her book The Art of Rest. We circle around the guilt and anxiety that our stillness translates as idleness. We justify our need to slow down with a list of the busyness that comes before, thus perpetuating the myth that our worth lies in how busy and full our lives are.

Hersey suggests that women’s inability to rest is deeply intwined with a patriarchal society that values male time over female time and GDP over quality of life. ‘Rest is a form of resistance,’ she argues. ‘It disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. We must continue deprogramming from grind culture. We must wake up. We will rest.’

She uses the term ‘sabbath’ for taking extended breaks. During the height of the uprisings for Black Lives Matter in May, Hersey took an impromptu three-week sabbath. ‘I signed off from work emails, social media, technology and labour to grieve and process. I practice what I preach.’ For a prominent activist to take a rest during such a critical time could seem counterintuitive, but instead Hersey argues that she was living out her truth. For Hersey, the resistance was in connecting deeply with herself, her power, her innate womanhood and choosing the self-love that comes with rest and retreat.

‘If you want rest, you have to take it. You have

to resist the lure of busyness, make time for

rest, take it seriously, and protect it from a world that is intent on stealing it’

Re f ramin g re st The pandemic has also forced many people to consider their own relationship with leisure. On the one hand, many of us are facing extended, enforced periods of pause. Empty time that has become filled increasingly with activities such as gardening, walking, cooking, listening to music and reading – all things that Hammond notes as restful.

But, for others, the pandemic has only served to reduce rest time to almost nothing, as school and nursery closures force families

into an impossible juggle, reminding us how challenging and impossible our lives are without proper rest. Lurching from work to homeschool to housework to managing finances to childcare leaves no time at all for pause. While, social media memes with entreaties of ‘you’ve got this!’ have only served to reinforce this message that we don’t need to stop.

Whatever our experience, the dramatic rise in cases of mental health referrals during the

past year shows us that we cannot keep going at this pace – we need to rest more. And for Hersey, the pandemic has brought a unique opportunity with it. ‘I am sick of rushing and the obsession with opening back up and getting back to normal. I never want to see normal or the way it was again. It is time for a new way…

‘Now that we are being forced to slow down, will we answer the call to collectively stop to dream, daydream, cultivate silence and rest?’ she asks.

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‘Slowing down, allowing your mind to wander and daydreaming are the things that create space in our minds’

How to re st In this new era, it is important that we remain openminded about what constitutes rest. In her book, Hammond surveyed 18,000 people worldwide in order to come up the top ten most restful activities.

Mindfulness, walking, being in nature and having a bath all made the list, but so did listening to music, reading and watching television.

While you don’t have to work too hard to justify music or reading as a restful activity – both offer us a moment to escape into another world, quietening the mind and distracting us from our darker thoughts.

But, when it comes to something like television, we circle back to feelings of guilt.

There is a certain idea that television is the very manifestation of idleness, but Hammond makes an impassioned case for TV. ‘It requires no physical effort, and it requires almost no mental

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effort,’ she says. ‘And when the programme is any good, it’s completely absorbing. We could practise mindfulness – but there’s nothing wrong with mindlessness too,’ she adds.

The key, of course, is balance. And in what you personally find restful. ‘Choosing activities that give you permission to rest is quite powerful,’ says Hammond. Active rest – such as walking, gardening and swimming – is a great way to take a break without the requisite guilt.

Pang agrees, but feels that active rest has other benefits too, crucially serving to encourage creativity and productivity. ‘The counterintuitive discovery is that many of the most restorative kinds of rest are actually active,’ he says. ‘Things like exercise or walks or serious, engaging hobbies… active rest delivers the greatest benefits. It also provides occasion for creative reflection.’

Creative reflection can be a real benefit of taking time to relax – a break to take a walk, make a coffee or do some weeding can give you renewed energy for the task at hand. But on other occasions, it is precisely this reflection that we avoid. We are afraid of what happens when we rest. ‘It’s not that we find it hard to find the time… it’s that we fear the time,’ says Hammond In an empty space, with nothing to distract us, we are left ruminate on our worries and feelings.

We can get anxious, depressed and start to feel familiar uncertainties creeping back in. But, if we do feel like this, then perhaps this is precisely the time we need to reconnect with ourselves and to go deeper into our feelings. ‘In the right quantities, time spent alone can allow us to retreat and to

tend to our emotions, hopefully leaving us feeling renewed,’ adds Hammond.

Learning the skill of doing nothing in particular is actually really important – quietness, slowing down allowing your mind to wander and daydreaming are the things that create space in our minds and help us find the way forward. ‘Rest. Deep rest. Slower

movements. Slower moments. Focus on things with intense study. The way my hands move while washing the dishes, the smell of cocoa butter, how my cat’s stomach moves up and down while he naps for 10 hours a day. Become a vessel for stillness. A miracle walking,’ suggests Hersey.

Crucially though, it’s about choosing activities that you love. When you do this, you give yourself permission to give in completely.

‘May you realise the power of taking a rest, since no-one will give it to you,’ declares Hersey. ‘This is why rest is a resistance and a slow meticulous love practice.’

Rest and repair

By Claire Brayford They say a good sleep is the best medicine, and its restorative power is unlocked long before you pull back the covers. Establishing a consistent routine with plenty of ‘sleep hygiene’ – bed before midnight, eliminating noise and light, and keeping the room cool – are some of the ways to stave off insomnia.

But there is more you can do, which is why we have put together the latest sedative soaks, peaceful pillow mists and calming candles – just let fatigue float away

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THE SLEEP BALM Brightening Night Balm, £100, Epara Formulated to work after dark, Epara’s rich and luxuriant ‘Brightening Night Balm’ makes for some seriously supercharged slumber. Enriched with sweet almond and Moroccan Argan oils to soften and moisturise, as well as signature Plankton-extract to target hyper-pigmentation, it is little surprise the name Epara means ‘to cocoon oneself’ in Nigeria.

THE HAND CREAM Rose Hand Cream, £20, Aromatherapy Associates Ease fatigue and massage a sense of serenity and optimism into your hands with Aromatherapy Associates’ new Rose hand cream. Boasting a naturally uplifting trio of essential oils – Damask Rose with its skin-rejuvenating abilities, geranium to bring balance and ground the mind and body as well as soft sweet Palmarosa to heal and calm – it is an easy way to incorporate a little self-care before bed.

THE PILLOW SPRAY Recovery + Sleep Pillow Spray, £28, Anatome Carve out a soothing sleep-space away from urban stressors with Anatome’s new pillow spray. Poured over by a team of experts, nutritionists and aromacolgists, the range, including a trio of sleep oils, is the new go-to for London’s overactive, anxious minds. A quick spritz of the 22 essential oils (including lavender, frankincense and seaweed) on your pillow will encourage, deep, sustainable rest.

THE NIGHT PURIFYER Overnight Banish Gel, £18, Indie Lee If fatigue has taken its toll, you can deter blemishes with Indie Lee’s new overnight purifying gel. Containing a cocktail of powerful natural ingredients: Kaolin and Bentonite clays to draw out impurities and excess oil; wintergreen-derived Salicylic Acid to exfoliate; vitamin-rich Noni, Tasmanian Pepper Fruit, Jasmine and Burdock Root extracts to nourish – what is inside is everything to founder Lisa Swengros.

THE NIGHT LIGHT Bodyclock Shine 300, £129, Lumie When it comes to beating the winter blues, a gradual light to start and end the day is one of the most effective ways to reset your internal clock and the daily cycle of hormones, metabolism and sleep. Its Bodyclock Shine device allows you to set your own sunset and sunrise, so that you can naturally unwind to a fading gentle glow or slowly wake to a bright, sun-filled room.

THE BEAUTY TOOL Mon Ami Acupressure Tool, £17, Odacité Relieve tension in the face and unclog any energy blockages with Odacité’s new acupressure roller. Glide it over the skin, focusing on acupressure points around the temple and jawline, this elegant tool gradually smoothes stubborn lines and over time improves your skin’s tone and texture too.

THE SOOTHING CANDLE Aromatique Candle, £80, Aesop Engage with the ‘rest’ phase of your day with a good breathing technique that allows your body the time to relax. Scent is extremely transporting, and Aesop’s new fragrant candles in elegant reusable ceramic are as beautiful on the eye as the nose. Inspired by the stars, we love that each one is named after an ancient Greek astronomer. Our favourite, Aganice, has a spicy aroma of cardamom, clove and mimosa. Just remember to blow it out well before bedtime.

THE SEROTONIN-BOOSTER Magnesium and Amethyst Deep Relax Bath Soak, £55, Ilapothecary Supplement your sleep-inducing serotonin levels and counter the negative impact of computers, laptops, smart-phones and television with a magnesiuminfused pre-bed bath. Filled with mineral rich salts and reparative oils – including Amethyst and Benzoin - they soothe the nerves, relax your muscles and leave you feeling boosted and calm.

THE EYE SERUM Eye Ampoules, £155, MZ Skin by Dr. Maryam Zamani Ensure tired eyes receive the maximum opportunity to regenerate with Dr. Maryam’s intensive eye regime. Working hard overnight to plump the skin and reduce the appearance of dark circles and puffiness, the collagen-boosting peptides and antioxidants support the skin’s density in that delicate area. In the morning, the meso-hydrators lift and brighten so you start the day looking refreshed. It’s a real eye-opener.

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‘The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once’ - Albert Einstein

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STORY OF

WISDOM

The Tree of Perspective

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn to not judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.

The second son said no – it was covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed, he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

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The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but one season in the tree’s life.

He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are – and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life – can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.

If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfilment of your fall.

Don’t judge a life by one difficult season.

Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.

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Az-Zāhir

The M an ife s t , T h e E v id e n t , The O u te r, T h e C o n sp ic uo us The O ne w ho ha s m a n ife s t a l l o f c re a t io n and w ho i s ma n ife s t in a ll o f c re a t io n .

The O ne whos e n a t ure a n d ex is t e n c e is demons tr a t e d in a ll o f c re a t io n .

The O ne w hos e e ss e n c e a n d a tt r ibut e s a re s how n throug h o ut a l l o f c re a t io n .

The O ne wh o is a bo ve c re a t io n , ye t who i s made v is ible t h ro ug h c re a t io n

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Unbroken

Redefining normal

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or those facing tough battles in life, there comes a time when we all have to decide what recovery means to us personally. Is it an end point where that particular challenge is over and forgotten about, an anecdote to be told at parties with a sigh of relief, or is it learning to live with a new version of what’s normal?

For me, after a long, hard phase of chronic illness and years in rehabilitation, I have my own definition. I believe that recovery is a lifelong journey, one of self-discovery, growth and ultimately transformation.

The person you are at the start of treatment is often completely different from the person you’ll become. As I look back, I can see a path of infinite small steps, milestones and accomplishments that have combined to create the person I am now.

When we face a new challenge, we often inadvertently visualise every little step we need to take in order to overcome that challenge. It’s just how the brain processes these kinds of things.

From your position on the starting line, you might believe that there is a ‘finishing line’, a definitive point at which the struggle stops. Once you reach that place, you’ll be in the clear. But for many challenges, that isn’t how things work. In a lot of cases, recovery is not a destination, it’s a journey.

When life hands you a struggle, things can initially feel very dark and confusing. As Katherine May wrote in her brilliant book, Wintering, ‘It is a fallow

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period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress or cast into the role of an outsider.’ It affects your whole life: your emotions and your ability to function normally.

The thing to remember is that we all feel this way at some point or another. As May notes, ‘We like to imagine that it’s possible for life to be one eternal summer, and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves.’

Yet ‘winter’ as she terms these difficult periods, is inevitable. Crucially, I have learned that these periods of struggle are not incompatible with everyday life.

It’s just that you may need to redefine what that everyday life means for you right now. For the chronically ill among us, redefining your normal is a huge part of stepping out into the world after recovery.

Our thinking patterns have their own powers. A shift in perspective is often what is really needed to keep you moving forward. Allow it in and watch as you grow more self-aware, a stronger, more complete person. A sense of purpose and achievement on this bumpy road of recovery will always keep you looking forward. While there may not be an end goal that you can work towards, there are plenty of smaller goalposts to reach that are just as important.

For me, success is a sum of hundreds of small efforts, repeated day in day out. I am on my road of recovery, walking slowly, but never stopping.

‘We like to imagine that it’s possible for life to be one eternal summer. Yet winter is inevitable’

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Time to reassess D r. A s m a N a h e e d c o n s i d e r s h o w t o ge t a work/life balance in a post-Covid world

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‘It’s not a time to panic, but rather a time to harness the lessons we have been learning and to put them to good use’

W

ith the rise and rise of technology, work/life balance was always going to a matter of huge concern for everyone living through the 21st century.

Indeed, in the heady days before the pandemic, many of us were struggling to achieve this balance.

The never-ending emails, the early-morning Skype calls, or even work What’s App groups chirping at us long into the evening (recent research by Guild has shown that more than 50% of workers use messaging apps for workplace communication), contributed to a blurring of the lines long before ‘WFH’ became part of our everyday lexicon.

Then came the once-in-a-century pandemic and this blurring hit the accelerator. There was a quickly met need to develop a range of digital tools to support remote working and within weeks there was a huge shift in perception of what was possible to achieve without stepping into an office. In a recent study, Carl Benedikt Frey, Oxford Martin Citi Fellow and Director of the Future of Work Programme at the Oxford Martin School examined 483 occupations and found that 113 of them can be performed remotely. ‘Importantly though, those 113 occupations employ 52% of the U.S. workforce,’ he noted.

Seeing the opportunity for streamlined business models, many major employers are now considering making working from home a permanent fixture.

The CEO of multinational food corporation Mondelez noted that coronavirus crisis has showed ‘we can work in different ways,’ and as a result, the company no longer needs all of its global offices.

UK building society Nationwide, which has gone to 98% work from home during Covid-19, announced a permanent transition to a hybrid model, with working-from-office in four main corporate campuses

and working-from-home in most other locations.

While the CEO of global banking giant Barclays, Jes Staley, said crowded corporate offices with thousands of employees ‘may be a thing of the past.’

But with 9-5, office-based work traditionally making up a huge part of our identity (how often is ‘What do you do?’ your first question when meeting someone new?) what does this shift mean for our mental health and the day-to-day structure of our lives?

At present, it is important to remember that we are still in the thick of things with the pandemic and stress levels are undoubtably heightened like never before. The surging unemployment rate is considered by experts to be a traumatic event that can cause measurable harm, while a 24/7 news cycle delivers the latest developments in the pandemic, the stock market rollercoaster and a slew of other scary realities causing very real distress.

Consciously or not, most of us are all battling some level of fear and anxiety about this new disease, likely coupled with an array of emotions including uncertainty about money and job security, stress over working from home set-ups or home schooling and worry or guilt over those suffering more than us. Such emotions can be overwhelming, and along with more general workplace stress can easily lead to burnout, depression, anxiety, anger and helplessness.

To move forward, we must acknowledge these emotions without judgement and seek ways that can help alleviate our stress.

Industrial psychologist Timothy Golden, PhD, of the Lally School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York says, ‘It’s not a time to panic, but rather a time to harness the lessons we have been learning and to put them to good use.’

As employers’ close offices to slow the spread of Covid, industrial psychologists have been working hard to suggest how both managers and employees can work more effectively during this time. They have acknowledged the great responsibility on leaders’ shoulders, asking them to balance the need for productivity with the extraordinary circumstances in which we are all living.

It has been suggested that employers should also set the tone in office culture – destigmatising mental illness and promoting a culture where people seek mental health services with confidence. Check out your companies HR policies and see if there are

opportunities for help.

From the employee side, it is important to recognise that work may feel different than before.

Studies show that remote workers tend to log more hours than their office-based counterparts and experience a blurring of boundaries between their home and work lives. Employees and employers should therefore have clear goals and boundaries for their jobs. Workers should aim to stick to the same schedule each day and if possible, stop checking messages and email when the workday ends.

With watercooler moments no longer an option, you will need to make a clear communication plan and seek out social connection with your colleagues.

Staying connected to other co-workers, managers and customers is paramount to successful communication, especially during this stressful period.

Industrial psychology emphasises that lasting cultural change always starts from the top down. If you run a company or a team, now is the time to look into training to help mangers and leaders to understand the importance of mental wellness, as well as to recognise the signs of mental and emotional distress. By identifying how attitudes and behaviours can be improved in the workplace and ensuring that morale remains high during periods of change, companies will be better placed to thrive and attract the best talent in the future.

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‘Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely’

Can we have another quote page here please

- Auguste Rodin

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