Learning to be Lazy

A post about my eternal quest for the right work-life balance

When self-employed and working from home, it’s too easy to go to either of two extremes. You work flat out, failing to differentiate between weekdays and weekends, daytime and evening, or you drift about doing housework as a means of procrastination.

When I first started working from home, seven years before COVID made it commonplace, an old friend said to me:

How do you manage to get any work done? I’d be forever putting the laundry on or doing the ironing.

The fact that I gave up ironing around the same time – I possess neither an iron nor an ironing board – indicates which camp I belong to, as does the dust on my bookshelves.

Mindful that we all need regular rest to stay healthy in mind and body, after completing my latest manuscript, I decided to down tools completely for five whole days. The first two were spent on a trip to Bruges with my siblings, and for the remaining three I planned to do absolutely nothing.

I also managed to travel back in time, seeing the Procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges, which has been taking place at Pentecost ever since 1304 (click image for more details from the Visit Bruges website)

 The challenge was I don’t know how to do nothing. I am very bad at sitting still, always needing to be doing something, even if it’s only knitting.

Therefore, I decided to do something I never usually do: to try online games on my phone.

As someone who can’t usually stomach video games because they make me feel seasick, I didn’t expect to find a game that would appeal to me. I was surprised to discover not one but a whole range of them, defined as sorting games.

At first that term made me picture toddlers’ shape-sorting toys, and I suppose they’re not that dissimilar. Across the phone screen scroll endless items, as if on a multi-level conveyor belt, reminiscent of The Generation Game, for those old enough to remember it. When you rearrange the objects into matching groups of three, they disappear. You must clear the conveyor belt before the timer pings. I found these games surprisingly addictive, and the time flew by as I kept thinking, “Just one more round, then I’ll stop”.

At first, I couldn’t understand why this simple exercise should be so satisfying. Then I realised I was responding to a basic human need to create order out of chaos.

Doing so on my phone was much easier than decluttering my house – a task long overdue that I’d promised myself I’d do once I’d finished the manuscript. After living in the same house for 33 years, there is an awful lot of clutter to de-.

But now my conscience has got the better of me. My five rest days are up, I’ve put the games on hold, and I’ve started to declutter my house in earnest. So far, I’ve done two kitchen cupboards and my wardrobe rails, and I feel so much lighter for it.

My only disappointment is that none of the stuff comes in satisfying groups of three.

(This post first appeared in the Hawkesbury Parish News, June 2024 edition.)

Coming Soon

NEW COZY MYSTERY TRILOGY

A clue as to the setting of my new cozy mystery trilogy

Decluttering is a theme in my next novel, due to be published a little later this year. The exact title and publication date are yet to be confirmed, but it’ll be the first in a brand-new trilogy of cosy mysteries set in the Cotswolds, in a village not far from Wendlebury Barrow and St Bride’s School, the settings for my other two mystery novel series. The manuscript is currently with Rachel, my editor at Boldwood Books, and she’s also asked me for an outline for books two and three, which I am really looking forward to writing. More news on that project soon!

 

READERS’ CLUB NEWSLETTER

This cozy mystery novella is available exclusively for my Readers’ Club.

I’ll also be writing a newsletter shortly to members of my Readers’ Club, with exclusive news and photos. If you haven’t yet signed up, click here to add your name to my mailing list, and you’ll receive a free download of the ebook of my novella, The Pride of Peacocks, which is not available anywhere else!