This is such a wonderful time of year, but it can also bring a lot of stress, worry and very little time for yourself.  Hopefully you now find yourself in the lull between the festivities and the end of the year, with time to catch your breath and have a bit of a self-review.

We’ve had quite a few weeks now to consider a lot about our time, how we prioritise it, how we enrich it, how we make simple changes to take back control and make more ‘minutes for me’.

As such, I hope that you are able to approach the end of 2017 with an air of serenity, knowing in your mind that even if this year didn’t exactly turn out like you had planned it to, you have a fair idea of what you want to achieve next year, you are confident in thinking about a month by month goal, and you are bossing the 5 minutes for me each day 😉. 

Ideally you have had some time to think about what you would like to achieve in 2018 (link), focus on your favourite things and favourite people, and are eagerly scheduling in lots of free time into your new diary.

The best thing about free time is that it brings spontaneity with it!

Spontaneity can be so liberating, so joyful and so perfect because a lack of a plan means that you have no preconceived notions or expectations to fall short of and no reliances on weather conditions. 

There is so much pressure on us to think ahead, book ahead and pay ahead – as we are constantly bombarded with notions of scarcity and the idea that the best experiences are only for the few and not the many –  the overriding message being “you had better get your credit card out and book early!”.  This is not the way we should be approaching our lives!  There are so many last minute options that there are an abundance of websites to promote them – don’t be fooled and go exploring with confidence.

If you are able to be more spontaneous because of the nature of your wealth or social position then that’s fabulous – make sure that you catch those last minute flights or trains and go adventuring! Block out weekends, leaving the plans to the very last minute and catch yourself on a whim.

Genuinely though, what I have been trying to say over the last few blog posts is spend more time on the important stuff, and less time on the insignificant.  I understand that if you are busy then it is important to schedule ahead – but only in circumstances such as you may find that you go for a year without seeing a great friend purely because your plans just don’t coincide with each other in the short term.  But no matter how much you are happily scribbling into your 2018 diary right now, I implore you once again: make space for free time, quality time, time to be spontaneous.

One of my favourite artists, Rob Ryan, wrote on a beautiful valentine screen print http://shop.robryanstudio.com/products/there-is-only-time-screenprint (note that these are available in woman/man, man/man and woman/woman):

‘There is no such thing as free time.

There is no such thing as work time.

There is no such thing as play time.

There is no such thing as spare time.

There is no such thing as the right time.

There is no such thing as down time.

There is no such thing as quality time.

There is no such thing as the wrong time.

There is only time.’

So start making the most of what you have today, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Photo by Felix Russell-Saw on Unsplash