July is always a really busy time of the year for me:
on the work front, tricky HR issues always crop up just before the ‘summer holidays’
on the family front, schools try and cram a year’s worth of extra-curricular activities into the last couple of weeks of the summer term – for parents to hopelessly juggle!
Therefore, ways to de-stress are highly sought after!
This week, just by chance (or luck), I was kindly given a copy of a magazine called ‘The Simple Things’ with the strapline: living and loving the simple life.
Being too busy to read it I placed it wrong-side up on my rather large ‘reading pile’, but my eye hovered over the back page – where there was a short list entitled ‘the simple things’ – it made me literally STOP in my tracks and take a few minutes out to think about my own personal list of simple and pleasurable things.
Well, it had such a wonderful calming effect on me, I thought I might share the idea and see if I could ask other owner managers and busy people to give it a try as a way to de-stress – think of it as a 5 minute oasis of calm!
For a bit of inspiration, here is my ‘SIMPLE THINGS’ LIST (in no particular order):
- Receiving that spontaneous hug from a teenage daughter (just because)
- Biting into a fresh fruit scone (oozing with jam, clotted cream and sprinkled with icing sugar)
- Falling asleep on newly laundered bed linen
- Seeing the first shoots of Spring awaken my garden
- Wiggling toes in warm, wet sand
- Curling up in a large sofa with a cup of tea
- Eating an apple straight off the tree
This is going up on my noticeboard!
Please feel free to add yours here, to help inspire others. Share the idea with family, friends and work colleagues and help reduce stress levels in Shropshire and beyond!