The Art of Doing Less (Without Feeling Guilty)

There's something quite strange about having a day with absolutely nothing planned.

You spend the week looking forward to it, imagining a slow morning, a coffee that doesn't go cold before you've had a chance to drink it, perhaps a few hours doing whatever you fancy. Then the day arrives and, before you know it, you're finding things that need doing.

The washing could go on. That cupboard could do with sorting. There are emails you haven't replied to and a list of little jobs you've been meaning to get around to. And suddenly, the day you were so looking forward to has become another day of getting things done.

I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately. Why is it that we find it so difficult to do nothing?

When did being busy become something to be proud of?

Ask someone how they've been and there's a good chance they'll tell you they've been busy.

We're all busy. Busy working, busy looking after everyone else, busy trying to keep on top of everything. Even our free time seems to need a purpose.

Somewhere along the way, I think we've started measuring a good day by how much we've managed to squeeze into it. And I'm just as guilty of it. I can sit down with a coffee and within minutes I'll be thinking about what I should be doing instead. Even when there's nothing particularly urgent, there's that little voice reminding me that I could be making better use of my time.

But better use of it according to whom? That's the bit I've started questioning.

The things we overlook

When I think about the days I remember most fondly, they're rarely the ones where I got loads done.

They're the ordinary ones. Sitting outside with a coffee when the sun finally makes an appearance. A walk that ends up taking longer than expected because there's no particular reason to rush home. A conversation that carries on long after the plates have been cleared.

Sometimes it's simply being at home, with the windows open, listening to the sounds coming in from outside.

Nothing remarkable happens. There's no big occasion or exciting story to tell afterwards. But those are often the moments I'd quite happily go back to.

I wonder how many of them we miss because we're too distracted thinking about what comes next.

Even slowing down has become a trend

One thing I've noticed is how easily slow living can become another thing we're supposed to be good at.

You only have to spend a few minutes on social media to see it. Beautiful morning routines, perfectly made beds, carefully arranged breakfasts and homes that somehow never seem to have anything out of place.

Don't get me wrong, I love looking at beautiful spaces as much as anyone. But I don't think slowing down should require a particular kind of home, an expensive candle or a morning routine that starts at five o'clock.

And it certainly shouldn't be something else to feel guilty about not doing properly.

Some mornings are rushed. Sometimes the house is a mess. Sometimes your coffee comes from the nearest takeaway because that's all you've got time for. That's life. The whole point, surely, is to make a little more room to enjoy it as it is.

Learning to leave things for another day

I'm not suggesting we abandon our responsibilities and spend our days doing absolutely nothing. As lovely as that might sound occasionally, most of us don't have that luxury. But perhaps we could get a little better at recognising when enough is enough.

Not everything needs to be finished today. Not every spare hour needs filling. And we don't always need to have something to show for how we've spent our time. I think there's something quite freeing about accepting that.

A Sunday afternoon spent reading isn't wasted because you didn't finish the housework. Sitting in a café watching the world go by doesn't need to be justified as a much-needed break after a particularly productive week.

You can just enjoy being there.

Of course, knowing this and actually putting it into practice are two very different things. I'm still learning.

There are days when I find it easy to switch off and others when I can't seem to sit still for five minutes without thinking of something I ought to be doing. But I'm becoming more aware of it, and perhaps that's a start.

A slower way of living

When we first started thinking about what Maison Kasbah should be, I kept coming back to this idea of appreciating what we already have. Not because I think there's anything wrong with wanting more from life, but because it's so easy to spend our time chasing the next thing that we forget to enjoy what's right in front of us.

A slower way of living doesn't have to mean changing everything.

It might simply mean taking your time over breakfast occasionally. Going for a walk without checking how many steps you've done. Saying no to something because you'd rather have a quiet afternoon at home. Or allowing yourself to have a completely unproductive day without feeling the need to make up for it tomorrow.

I'm not particularly good at that last one yet. But I'm working on it.

And I think that's where I'll leave things today. There's a coffee waiting for me, and for once, I'm going to try to drink it without doing anything else at the same time.