Many months ago – probably a year – I decided to start this blog about making more time for things we love and/or enjoy.  The irony is that I have not found enough me time, in all this time, to actually get it out there.  After receiving a bit of help with organising my thoughts, I have come to realise that I should accept this idea as a stepping stone towards opening new pathways which will allow me to discover new ways of enriching my life (and hopefully helping others to do the same). No more, no less. 

So – here is where I originally started…

Lets embark on a journey together, and challenge ourselves to find some ‘me time’ each and every day.  I am not talking about daily full body massages or champagne afternoon teas, lets start with just five minutes and see where we can go.

Many of us are living very busy lives with very little time to think about what we might do with the five minutes that we have, so I am hoping to start a conversation that will reach out and connect busy females from all over the globe, through the web, instagram and facebook, to help us enrich our lives by bringing many ideas together to inspire us all to do something different, or do something better, every day.  A way to consciously engage with yourself and the world around you for at least five minutes.

I first thought about how desperate I was for five minutes for myself when I was on maternity leave with a very needy baby who kept me up in the night and a busy toddler to keep me running around in the day. Non-mothers don’t tune off now, this isn’t a mum’s blog, there are many superb mum’s covering that one off nicely. I’m simply very busy, like many many women out there sucked into the 9-5, or studying, or at-home women who have found their day full of chores and favours. What I thought of during those months were how happy I would be if I could just carve out five minutes to give myself some attention. Surely if I could find just five minutes each day I could become happier in my own skin. Admittedly in that time my focus was all about my post-natal and sleep-deprived appearance, but as the years have gone by I’m looking more to a deeper and more meaningful happiness and sense of self-worth.

There is so much going on in the world around us, if we are happier and more rounded we can contribute in a much more positive and empowering way. Happiness to me is a state of mind, it’s about having fun, trying new things but mostly about having confidence to give new things a go. A kind of feeling of self-worth that you get when you step out in matching lingerie. Ok, so that one is shallow, but who cares? You may feel good because you have got your eyebrows on-point, have fixed your guests the perfect gin & tonic, drew and framed your first picture or been able to participate in a dinner party conversation that previously you would have nodded politely & mutely through as you sipped more prosecco.  Confidence and a feeling of self-worth is the key and what I would like this blog to help us achieve.

Now you may think that this is all very well but that you are just too busy and couldn’t possibly make time for anything else. So I wonder if you have ever read ‘The Secret’ or any other material about the theory of relativity and how the universe works? It’s a concept that (very over-simplified) states that through the ‘law of attraction’ you get out what you put in. So if you spend your moments thinking/saying ‘I don’t have time’ then you quite simply won’t. If you change your thought frequency to ‘I have loads of time’ then you should find that you start to have more free time.

The key for this to work for me and for you is prioritisation. Also, start with five, just five minutes for yourself, and see how you get on. I expect most things we find that take five minutes will be things done at the bare minimum and could easily be extended to make for a longer experience.

So, where to start? Lets begin by getting a notebook (a physical one would be best), preferably unlined to help you unleash your creativity. This will be your point of reference to record your five minutes of difference each day. Keep the front page clear for our first exercise. Try to explore yourself when you note your experiences, so you can draw and be creative in everything you write or illustrate.

Activity #1

Option 1 (15 minutes):

I highly recommend for your first exercise that you watch “How to gain control of your free time” Ted talk by Laura Vanderkam https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time

Option 2 (5 minutes):

If you only have five minutes here is a summary:

There are 168 hours in a week, so if you spend 56 of those sleeping and say 50 working then 21 on the essentials, you (theoretically) have over 40 hours left over for free time!

Ok, so it never works out exactly like that, but like Laura says in her talk, it is all about prioritisation. So let’s prioritise you. Take five minutes to think about what you want to have achieved by the end of the next 12 months. Give yourself no more than three areas (Laura uses professional, family, personal) and two-three goals in each.

Write/draw/illustrate these goals on your front page.

Once a week you can come back to this and see what you can plan in to make progress on your next week.

Please enter the conversation on instagram and Facebook by tagging #minutesforme @minutesforme

For example:

ME

1 – Start a blog

2 – Run a 10k

3 – Organise a fundraiser

FAMILY/RELATIONSHIP

1 – Amazing holidays

2 – Fun days out

3 – The MOVE!

WORK

1 – New software successfully installed

2 – Promotion

3 – Interesting secondment

Enjoy!

Sam x