Have you ever tried just... not doing so much?

The creative's toolkit: on taking a step back and doing less

I’ve begun a project that will take me until mid-August at the earliest, and it’s currently zapping all the usual creativity at my disposal.

I feel like Matilda when she goes up a few years at school and loses her powers - as though by filling my time with something so consuming, I don’t any energy for other things. I haven’t sewed, painted or decorated anything for weeks now. My home office, where I work on Mondays and Wednesdays, has grey wallpaper and a grey feel, and I don’t have the time to spread Barbouche on the walls and cheer it up.

And life slightly needs a bit of cheering up this spring, I am finding. I can’t remember a more rain-filled, sad spring. And sometimes when the outsides reflect or inform your insides, it requires digging even deeper into those reserves.

So have you ever tried just… doing less?

Expecting less of yourself?

Why not give this a go:

For this week, or today, or even just an hour, expect yourself to do less. Rather than immediately saying yes, take your time.

Give yourself an easier time of it, and aim to go to bed early, and without your mobile.

I don’t know a single one among us who wakes naturally, feeling rested, and having enough energy to go about the day. We’re all knackered. So shall we try and sink into that for a while and let ourselves recover?

In the evenings, often, I take it even easier when things are hard. Simple meals, a bath, lowered expectations.

Reading in the evenings. Even within publishing (especially within publishing!) we need reminding sometimes that books are a source of pleasure, escapism and recuperation.

The jagged edges of burnout aren’t staved off by roaring into its face, but by stepping away.

Eating leftovers. Saying no. Saying yes to gentle exercise, even when we want to say no.

Whenever I used to get that furious blank tiredness that felt like depression, my Mum would listen to my woes and then say quietly ‘Alice, why don’t you try and go to bed for 9.30?’

It did work. Not immediately, but stepping back from the carousel of busy, busy, busy, gives you time to do more of nothing.

Hoping for brighter days ahead. I think we’ll find they are coming…