Hello!

Something I’m finding a bit difficult at the moment is feeling present in the moment – I appear to have blinked and it’s May! I sometimes genuinely forget it’s 2021.

But it’s things like being thrilled it’s the weekend and then suddenly it’s Monday and I feel like I haven’t made the most of my time off at all, I don’t feel refreshed and I’m dreading running on empty for another week. I’m struggling with feeling present and it’s a mix of constantly feeling like I’m waiting for the future or reminiscing about the past and I really want to spend more time focusing on living in the now.

Some of the things I’m going to try and do to work on it is by having shorter to do lists and not trying to cram as much into my precious time off, spending time at home because that’s where I find it easiest to recharge and getting away from the screens – not having my laptop over for the sake of it, listening to music instead of watching TV in the background and trying not to lose hours scrolling on tiktok!

Especially with the weather getting nicer, I’m trying to get out in the garden more, but then also spending time doing crafts, writing in my bullet journal and reading! I hit a reading slump in April and didn’t read more than one chapter in the whole month, but I’ve already read two books in May and I’m so excited to spend the summer outside with my books. My mum’s given us a sofa bed which we’ve put in the extension downstairs and sitting under the skylight and looking out in the garden with a book or with my knitting is so lovely.

It sounds silly, but I hope I can feel more present in my life to make the days feel longer! Thinking about how many weekends I’ve spent in bed till midday because it was the only way I could recover from a week of work just feels like such a waste. Hopefully being able to relax more and slow down will help me sleep better and it all be a nice positive circle of feeling less exhausted and more relaxed in my day to day.

Before work yesterday, I managed to wake up and get out of bed, go to the post box, get pastries from Sainsbury’s, journal and meditate before work and it felt great! I’d love to feel that refreshed and productive before I even start work, but the day before I turned off my 8am alarm, fell back to sleep because I was so tired and woke up again at 8.45am to start work at 9am. It’s a habit I’d love to break!

I’d love it if I could maintain a routine, but I always go through cycles of sleeping well, feeling more present and productive and then there’s times were I sleep for 8 hours and feel like I could sleep for 8 more and I feel like that’s normal? Anyone who maintains a daily routine forever is a robot I swear!

Once you count out work and sleeping, there’s approximately six hours an evening during the week and fourteen hours in the weekend days – but then there’s cooking and cleaning and tidying and doing a weekly shop and other boring grown up things there’s not a whole lot of time left in the week! A lot of our working lives are lost to the boring adult stuff so the time we have left over is precious, so being more intentional but how I spend that time will hopefully make me feel much more present.

But as lockdown lifts and there’s discussions about hybrid working and going back to the office, it’s hard to remember that working from home is actually exhausting mental and physically – I’ve spoken a lot about productivity culture being really toxic and taking that work mentality and bringing it into the home that’s meant to be our place of relaxation is tough!

If you need a sign to prioritise yourself and have a self care weekend, this is it!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx