Ah, life. From Life improvements, to one small thing, to overwhelm, to just being flat-out knackered. I am glad to be here and writing as part of my commitment to writing this blog, but I have no thoughts in my head this week. It’s (finally) a beautiful day, and I just want to lie on the grass and enjoy the big blue sky.

Sometimes, I think it’s ok to just do what you want. To focus on the pleasure and not the end result.

Maybe that’s always a better way to enjoy the journey?

We’re supposed to be getting ready to move house, and this week I just didn’t want to deal with is. So I sorted through my two bookshelves, gave away the books that didn’t ‘spark joy‘. And then colour-coded the rest.

It turns out that colour-coding your bookshelves is a hotly debated topic. Which suggest that we all have too much time on our hands, but anyway. Some people think that it turns books into home decor rather than the very serious life statement that they are. But they *are also* decor – I look at them, in my bedroom, every day. These are books which have travelled with me, many for a long time, and form part of my mental furniture. I know what colour they are and can find them to read. And if I can’t I have just as many minutes to find it as I would if I couldn’t remember the author.

I also spent an evening making a piece of art work, thinking about movement, connection, and flow. Did it help me save more money? Nope. Did it prepare lunches for tomorrow? Not at all. But it did help me get back into some kind of flow state where I could tap into something that wasn’t just the daily grind.

In some ways this is a much more FIRE mentality that the 18-hours-a-day laser focus that I had last week. Yes of course do the work, but stop and smell the roses. And find ways where doing the work creates some freedom for you to put down the worries and the stress and get things done without thinking, second-guessing or being anxious.

Like I have to make food, but the meal-planning and budgeting around grocery shopping means that I can either mindlessly throw something together or I can take a little bit of time to make something lovely.

It reminds me a bit of Catherine Gray‘s book ‘The Unexpected Joy of the Ordinary‘ – or indeed the Disney movie Soul – both of which are about taking life one deep lungful of fresh air at a time, and enjoying them all as much as possible. Truly, each one is a gift, even if it’s full of meetings, and emails, and stressy moment. There are always tiny nuggets of joy, if you look for them.

So that’s it for this week. I would love to hear about your tiny gems of joy for this week!