Balancing work and play – an experiment for August

I had a lovely holiday–restful and quiet with just the right amount of “doing”. A splendid expanse of time to do (and not do) just what I wanted.

It worked well for a few reasons:

1. I created a container of time for my holiday.
2. I made a list of everything I wanted to get done before I started my holiday (and then accepted anything that wasn’t finished would be left and not attempted during my week off).
3. I planned one or two small projects that I wanted to get done during my week off (things to create a flavour for my holiday, to make it distinctive from my more normal life).
4. I packed away all the clutter from my bedroom (leaving just two books and a teasmade!) to make a restful empty space.
5. I shopped for and ate different things.
6. I visited a different cafe!

Returning to work

Sadly returning to work was less successful. I felt like I struggled through last week. Mostly achieving my One Thing for the day, but largely ended each day feeling dissatisfied.

I spent quite a lot of time writing about my dissatisfaction in my morning pages, trying to work out what was going on. It wasn’t that I just missed being on holiday (though I was missing the gentle holiday rhythm), it was more that I was missing the distinctive demarkation that set my holiday apart from my more normal (working) life. I was missing the time and space to play.

Making a clear distinction between work and play

I was listening to an AudioBoo from artist Rhiannon Connelly when I first got back to my studio last week. In it she talked about watching a dove in her garden. The dove only ever worked at nest building in the mornings, and on wet days just knew that it was the right conditions to be working and just didn’t bother.

The image of this rather wise bird stayed with me all week. I really liked the distinction it was making between working and not working (and its wisdom to know when the conditions were’t right for work at all).

I think if we are low on energy, there is a tendency to just work when we are able, whenever that might be. That is certainly something I do, and something that taking a week off has highlighted rather brightly for me. This can mean that time for play just gets swallowed up. I loved having lots of time for play on my holiday, and I missing that was what has been leaving me feeling dissatisfied.

An Experiment

I’ve decided to try and experiment for August. I’m going to follow Rhiannon’s doves example and only work in the mornings for the rest of this month. The afternoons I’m going to leave empty for play.

I haven’t got everything quite right yet. I started the experiment on Friday and had a lovely day. Working in the morning (and feeling very proud of what I did) and then an afternoon at the cinema followed by an friend’s exhibition opening. Wonderful.

Setting aside the time and the energy for play

Yesterday however, I didn’t take into account how tired I was from my unusually busy time playing and had to drag myself through the morning, forcing myself to finish what I had set myself. The result was I had the time for play in the afternoon but not the energy!

Enter Rhiannon’s dove again. Some mornings just won’t have the right conditions for work just like they don’t for the wise dove. On those days I shall just accept that I can’t work (or can’t do as much as I might like). What I won’t do is exhaust myself so I can’t take advantage of my free afternoons. They need both time and energy for them to work!

I’ll report back on how things are going soon!

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