Time to wind down

Writer Siena Yates (page 10) is the first to acknowledge she has few responsibilities beyond herself. But after unexpectedly losing someone close to her this year, she started looking at her life differently, specifically how she allocated her time.

She made more room in her day for the good stuff, and worked to live, not the reverse. She made the switch by setting “hard boundaries, professionally and personally”.

“Desires such as spending time with loved ones, spending time in nature, eating good food, and getting plenty of sleep are pretty universal, yet most of us aren’t doing it,” she writes.

Not everyone can reshape their lives easily, but Yates suggests we consider detaching, even just a little, from work in the leadup to Christmas to improve our chances of waking up on December 25 a picture of serenity.

Or, as Dr Annamaria Garden (page 8) says, “You are not your work… If a project you’re on fails, that doesn’t mean you’re a failure. That’s having clear boundaries. Ahead of the holiday time, you can start figuring yourself out. Ask yourself, ‘am I setting clear boundaries?’”

Part of setting boundaries is rest and relaxation, doing something so leisurely that you lose track of time, Garden says. “Leisure will immunise you from burnout.”

Thankfully, losing yourself in leisure seems achievable, and it works. Author Lana Lopesi, who three years ago became so unwell due to burnout she “just collapsed”, has a simple pre-Christmas winddown programme for herself: trash TV, reading a little fiction, and swimming with her kids. Taking rest seriously has made all the difference, she says.

The only thing on my pre-Christmas wind-down list is a decision to make no plans – not for the weekends, not for Christmas, not for summer, and not in the garden.

As Stuff columnist Brannavan Gnanalingam says (page 8), it’s nice when time gets a little elastic again after a busy year.

Bendable to you and no-one else.