Have you been bread-making?
Are you painting watercolour masterpieces?
Were you the reason for the sold out fitness equipment in April 2020?
Yep. Me too.
For the most part, all of these types of things have been great for keeping us all moving. I have to say I’ve built shelves and I’ve been landscaping the garden but no bread-making for me. I didn’t quite understand the reason for that, plus my oven is on it’s last legs. Bread is probably a cliff to nowhere.
I’m not one for resolutions but I do like to set mini goals throughout the year to get me on the straight and narrow – here’s a few I came up with earlier…
get some exercise in
Going for a walk, or a run or even getting on my trusty Fiton App makes such a difference to my writing. If I’m stuck then a 30 minute walk round the block and a bit of a stretch is the cure. Weirdly enough, I didn’t understand writer’s block until I started on copy and content full-time without selling. Now I get it. Exercise however is key.
find a work/life balance….somewhere
Working from home and freelancing is really odd. I mean the reality is, is that you can barely leave your home. You don’t have a work space and a home space. You just have a space that you live in where your laptop is. It’s very strange.
Maintaining the work-life balance is a difficult one since I really like working. It’s harder to get away from the laptop now also since everyone’s at home, but little things can help. Just doing a little sun salutation outside in my newly cleaned garden or getting a little sketching done are some of my favourite things I do in my downtime. It even goes on the Trello board.
volunteering in my community
I’m right there with the Greta’s of the world. I recycle and I upcycle. Half the things I’ve put together or gotten in the last year I’ve snaffled from the street and cleaned it up.
On the weekend, restrictions allowing, I get a kick out of getting down in the dirt with a bunch of likeminded people to plant some daisies. Strangely enough, this is where I found that people hide knives in bushes. That’s why in my area, you can’t plant bushes. Apparently, a rather flippant comment from the organiser was not taken well. He pointed out that if people throw knives in bushes then planting bushes could be nothing but positive, since it would be a treasure trove of knives. Pretty sure they hung up after that.
getting down to some DIY
In the first half of the lockdown in March, here in the UK, DIY shops’ sales were failing miserably. The longer the lockdown went on, the more people realised that their shelves were falling down and their walls were more scuff marks than paint, and that it was time to get yourself down to B&Q.
Part of my downtime are my plans to give my flat a good once over. I started in 2020, upcycling end tables and putting in shelves in my bathroom. I’ve got lots of remodelling plans that I can’t wait to get started on. As a woman, power tools are great. I totally get why men buy them for no reason. Just holding them makes me feel powerful. In saying that though, on Christmas Eve last year I was cutting down wood with my electric saw for a shelf and putting up racks for BBQ utensils. I might need to slow down a bit since I was so tired I woke up on Christmas day.
reading & learning
This is always a goal of mine. I’m forever the academic. Now though, I’m dedicated to working skills. The type of skills that make my copywriting and marketing skills better. I don’t think anyone should rest on they laurels if it’s about their craft. Making time for this in the schedule is the real problem though. Adding to the Trello board as I write this.
Copy & Content by Lola 