It’s your day, your thoughts and your actions!

Now I do as I preach or rather preach only what I really believe in. So I took a day out of my weekend, which normally constitutes cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, Netflix and meeting friends. It bore me, this routine. I just don’t enjoy going in cycles day in and day out. I want to break free. Haha – seems like I am singing right now. Oh, yes! I am, Lyrics are the best source of inspiration. They sum up your thoughts and feelings in this lyrical composition that sticks so much better than any writer can ever connect with you. ‘I want to break free’. Anyway, so I stepped out and did what I always wanted to – write, read, listen, and just enjoy life my way. Here is what I did:

So Melbourne has this ‘Emerging writer’s festival’ every year around June wherein they have various events, conferences, workshops around story telling, writing professionally and publishing/editing – so I attended to one of these sessions and get some insights from some published writers. The topic was 5*5 rules of writing. Now I am no professional writer and don’t know if I want to take it up as a profession, however I want to hone some writing skills for my blogs and what better way than to learn it directly from some of finest published writers to kick-start my journey as a writer. I shall write a separate piece on all that I learnt from this session in another article. But in a nutshell that’s how I started my morning, with some inspiration!

“You don’t need to know everything in the beginning, you just need to start”

– Toni Jordan

After some food for thought it was time to fuel the belly, so I headed to this nearby cafe and can definitely vouch for their coffee. One thing I have learnt while choosing a cafe/restaurant is that choose a cafe with ratings of 4 and above for a satisfactory experience. You will cherish the food, service, and ambience of that place and shall set the ball rolling for the rest of your day. So that was the next 45 minutes of me time or rather tummy time.

Now , it was the time to find a place where I can peacefully write with no distractions and whilst I would have loved any outdoor setting – it was not possible in this cold dreary winter days when the temperature drops to a single digit. So I thought what better place than a library. 

So I come to this library, a masterpiece in architecture and find my hideout place. Meanwhile I was thinking, when you have access to such facilities, why not take full advantage of it? So, I got my setting that I had needed – a place full of books, young and bright minds, quiet environment (not that quiet actually with all the visitors, but still better than most public places) – now is the time to begin the work

I started with writing some of my unfinished articles, planned for the forthcoming weekends, thought through some bigger agendas and spent some time reading this book that I had picked up from my office library and had never opened it till then – remember my habit to procrastinate and how I am trying to break through that habit – will write a follow up on that as well in terms of how I have fared so far, some common pitfalls, techniques to overcome them, etc. Anyway, by now I had almost spent 5-6 hours on this. Trust me the focus that I had was unparalleled. I would never have been able to achieve so much in probably next 2-3 weekends because of all the distractions and inexplicable black holes of time.

Anyway now that I had done most of what I had set out to do, it was time to return home. Now I had not planned for this, but when I stepped out of the Library, I saw these bunch of Sudanese students protesting for democracy and I loved the energy they had, the cause for which they were protesting – close to my heart and the leader who gave the speech had a sense of confidence that gathered a large crowd that you can see in the below picture. It left me with a smile.

The rest of my away day was just usual, spent time with my husband watching something over dinner and discussing our day. But this to me was a perfect day – doing the only thing that matters the most to you.

I was just wondering if we ever stop for a second to think about how our last week was, how you are doing in the current role or how your business is growing or not growing, what have you studied and what’s left to study, what we ate and didn’t eat, what stories are we consuming, how much screen time do we have in the day, how are we contributing to make this world better, are we giving back to the community?

Sometimes, it is important to unwind to perform better. We have all probably heard about the saying that sometimes you have to take one or two steps backward to pivot forward in the right direction.

So whilst we might agree that it makes sense – not most of us really do it. When have you taken some time off from whatever you have been doing to do just what you have wanted to and ALONE? Yes, that’s the key here – ALONE. Not with your spouse, not with your family or friends. Just spending time with yourself. Now you might think it’s difficult, but it isn’t – you just need to plan a day in a month or fortnight when you wanna go to some quiet place, take your arms and ammunition to amp up the fire inside you – your laptop, your diary, your headphones, your camera or your phone and some snacks and just go on a trip of self-discovery – Start in the morning and give yourself ample time to think through all of what I mentioned above and come back with a more productive self. Read, write, run, jump, exercise, click, eat do whatever you please but alone – so you have had the best company in the world you can ever get – Yourself.

Now some might say this ain’t me – ‘I can’t go alone’ or ‘I can’t eat alone’ or ‘I can’t be alone’ – sorry to break your myth, it’s just in your mind – you are always on your own, always. Period! We all have a family and friends and colleagues and social circles but we need to live our own lives and the way we want to, so it is essential we spend time with ourselves asking ourselves those big questions – ‘What we want to do’, ‘Where we want to go’, ‘How things have been so far’ and ‘If there is anything we can do to make it better.’ And if that doesn’t convince you, I just have one last question for you – If you can’t stay with yourself, how do you expect others to stay with you?

Another popular myth would be what do I do? Oh, my God! there is no dearth of things you can do and trust me it can be done, in any part of the world – go to a park, beach, temple, cafe, trek wherever you can break the monotony of your routine and somewhere you won’t be distracted

Now there are some do’s and don’ts for this to work

Do
Write your thoughts
Pen a poem
Shoot a movie
Read a book
Reduce screentime if possible
Reflect on things (office, work, business, school, people)
Be creative
Plan the entire day
Have a positive attitude
Wear comfy clothes

Don’ts
No calling anyone
No wasting time commuting a lot
No shopping
No indulgence
No sleeping
No procrastination
No cutting corners
No exploring (like a tourist)

If you work out or even if you don’t you might have heard about the concept of a recovery week when you need to rest a little to be able to perform better, this is exactly the same thing in life but yet we fail to do so and that includes me. I have said the same thing using different perspectives to stress the importance of doing it.

So don’t think, probably plan your next Sat or Sunday to take time off from your usual life, pack your bag with some essentials, choose a location (need not be just one location, can be multiple, just need to plan it better) where you can sit, relax, unwind, do some deep thinking and come back rejuvenated. Hope it helps.