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#MakingTime Day 21
“To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.” – Matthew Arnold
Your Day 21 Making Time challenge:
For 21 minutes… make a card for someone and post it
Are you starting to see a theme emerging here? We are encouraging you to be more creative and use your time to connect more with others.
Whenever you create a handmade card, there’s a little flurry of excitement. Not only did you find the creative process relaxing, fun and therapeutic, you now have something special and unique to send to someone you care about.
Spend 21 minutes today making a card for someone who’s been on your mind recently. Who would appreciate a truly personal and from the heart gift from you today.
Need ideas? Recycle greetings cards, use photos, include quotes, hand draw illustrations, create your own doodles and pictures, use calligraphy… anything goes!
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New to Making Time? Start at the beginning anytime here.
#MakingTime Day 20
Your Day 20 Making Time challenge:
For 20 minutes… take 20 photos of what is around you
These days we move through life at such a hectic pace, racing from one job to the next, that we barely stop to take note of what’s going on around us. We may be able to do everything at lightning speed, but how much space in our minds does this leave to truly and deeply experience anything?
Observation is a powerful thing. It requires us to be present in the moment. It requires us to stop and tap into all our senses – sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. When we really start pay attention we start to notice the world in a whole new way. We appreciate its beauty. We dream, we imagine, and we’re inspired to create.
As the old proverb goes, it’s important to ‘Make time to stop and smell the roses’, so today you have some field work! It doesn’t matter where you are – in the countryside, in a city centre, on an industrial park, on the beach, in your back garden – take 20 minutes to observe what’s going on around you – people, animals, plants, trees, the sky – and take 20 pictures of what you see.
This process is about awakening your senses and connecting with the amazing world around you. Go explore, be inspired and open the door to your creative spirit.
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New to Making Time? Start at the beginning anytime here.
#MakingTime Day 19
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities but in the expert’s there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki
Your Day 19 Making Time challenge:
For 19 minutes… Try something new
How do you know if you are going to love doing something if you have never tried it? So to do what you love, you need to be prepared to be a beginner. If you make a leap to something new and different, it is inevitable that there will be things you need to learn. And the fact is, you are not going to get it completely right first time. Consider new challenges as stepping-stones to doing what you love, and suddenly they seem a whole lot more exciting.
Today dive in and try something new. Sign yourself up for the class you’ve been thinking about, find out more about that group you heard about, or start reading up on a subject you’re interested in. You have 19 minutes… be brave and feel yourself come alive!
And remember this… It’s NORMAL not to be perfect. It’s HELPFUL to make mistakes. It’s GOOD to be playful and treat it like a game. In order to open your mind and grow, you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And the great news is, you won’t be a beginner at it forever.
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New to Making Time? Start at the beginning anytime here.
Making Time – Reflections from a month in Bali
Morning reflection
Today, as part of our ‘Making Time’ series, we bring you a guest post from one of our team members, Louise Gale, who recently spent a month soaking up culture, colour and creativity in the tropical island of Bali.
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Spending a month in Bali this past August was a gift of time to myself. I was to spend a whole month relaxing, exploring, slowing down and most importantly painting and creating with a group of beautiful women on a friend’s art retreat.
From the first morning, when I woke up to the sounds of nature and water running from the Buddha fountain, I knew my time in beautiful Bali would unfold and flow effortlessly. When I look back, it felt a little like being in a time warp; time wasn’t important and it did not really affect me. I guess I made time to not think about time. I was simply being.
Since returning home to my own little piece of paradise in Spain, I’ve been reflecting a lot on this magical trip and the wonderful practices I adopted over there. I’d love to share six things (and there are many more!) that I observed about life in Bali – things that I’m consciously making time for now I’m home so that soon they’ll become a way of life.
#MakingTime Day 18
Your Day 18 Making Time challenge:
For 18 minutes… prepare a delicious salad from scratch
There’s something incredibly special about eating a salad that’s been lovingly prepared – every ingredient hand picked, washed, peeled and carefully chopped. Nutritious and delicious it’s nature’s garden on a plate and you feel healthier justmaking it!
Today, take 18 minutes to prepare a salad from scratch. Enjoy the creative process of creating something special from whole raw ingredients.
Admire and appreciate the different colours of the vegetables and fruits you use: the dark red of a sweet bell pepper; the deep purple of a red onion, the variation of red and green lettuce; sunshine yellow tomatoes. Notice the different textures – the hard crunchiness of a carrot compared to the smooth soft flesh of an avocado and the different flavours and how they complement each other.
Look at what you’ve made and appreciate the beauty in the way it looks. Then taketime to sit down and tuck in! Savour each mouthful – the juicy freshness of each ingredient and think about all the vitamins you’re putting into your body.
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New to Making Time? Start at the beginning anytime here.
Nothing is impossible!
Today we bring you a guest post by Mary J. Dinan, author of The Global Suitcase, an inspirational travel book that’s been published worldwide.
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I’ve always loved travel literature. Over the years I’ve spent hours in my local book shop looking at books by travel greats like Michael Palin, who went around the world in 80 days, Jonathan Dimbleby, who embarked on a 10,000 mile trip into the heart of Russia and octogenarian Dervla Murphy who went to Afghanistan on foot and to India by bike. Then one day, while I was scouring the shelves looking for my next read, a lightbulb went on in my head. I decided, right there and then, that I was going to write a travel book.
#MakingTime Day 17
“Each moment is limited, fleeting, precious. Let’s not waste another one. Let’s live each moment, in love with life.” – Leo Babauta, on the ZenHabits blog
Your Day 17 Making Time challenge:
For 17 minutes… do something silly you loved doing when you were young
Building dens, making robots out of cardboard boxes, doing jigsaws, going on bike rides, creating sock puppets, putting on dance shows, writing stories, face painting, potato printing, wearing fancy dress, baking gingerbread men, colouring in, building sandcastles, setting up obstacle courses, making rose perfume, having water balloon fights, organising treasure hunts… kids have so much fun!
When we were little everything was about ‘play’ – we were open to everything and we’d use our imaginations, be curious and invent things without thinking about it. Thinking creatively came naturally and it was so much fun. How great would it be if we could think this way every day in adult life too?
Today we invite you to reconnect to the magic spirit of your inner child. What were you like as a child? What did you LOVE doing when you were little? For 17 minutes do this today and enjoy being a big kid. Think you don’t have time for this? That probably means you REALLY need to do it…
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New to Making Time? Start at the beginning anytime here.
Life in jellybeans…
Watching this reminded us about how precious life really is and why it’s important to make the most of each and every day. It’s never too late to change direction and it’s never too late to become the person you want to be.
Here are our top five tips for living life to the full… no excuses, no explanations, no regrets!
#MakingTime Day 16
Wow, half way through Making Time already! Can you believe what you’ve achieved in the last two weeks? We hope you’re as proud of yourself as we are of you. You’re doing so well! Keep making time and you’ll never look back.
Your Day 16 Making Time challenge:
For 16 minutes… phone a friend you haven’t spoken to lately
“We all want to be happy, but we often mistake a rush of excitement for happiness. Well-being is more of a sense of contentment, peacefulness, and connection with a place and people.” – Anna Black in ‘Living in the moment’
When we were young, we didn’t really need to work too hard at our friendships. We’d spend hours playing at school, hanging out at college or socialising at university. But as we get older and work, family life and other commitments demand so much of our time, it’s not as simple. We have to invest time and energy in our friendships and we have to value and nurture them if we want to keep them alive.
Luckily these days, you don’t have to meet up with people in person to say hello or catch up. Mobile phones make it easy for us to talk to anyone at anytime, wherever they are in the world.
So be a good friend today and call someone who matters to you. Let them know how much they mean to you and remind them that you’re always there to support them, to listen to them if they need to talk, and to help if you’re able to. Or just to have a laugh together. As the title of that famous Beatles song goes: “I get by with a little help from my friends”.
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New to Making Time? Start at the beginning anytime here.