A Box to Tick for Doing Less - A Gift For You
There were nine free guides in my downloads folder, and I'd given somebody my email address for every one of them.
It was a Sunday evening in September. I'd pushed the bills to one end of the kitchen table, made a pot of tea and started on a free guide of my own, about doing less, for this blog. By the second cup the plan was on the back of an envelope. Forty pages, and at the back a thirty day plan with a box to tick for every day you managed to do less.
Then I opened the downloads folder on the laptop, to see how other people lay these things out.
A guide to an empty inbox. A meal planner for busy weeks. Thirty days to a calmer you. A morning journal. Four I couldn't place from the names. And The 5am Blueprint, twice. The second one was called The 5am Blueprint (1), which is what a computer does when you download a thing you've already got.
I hadn't read a page of any of them. When I opened the Blueprint to look at the layout, not even the cover was familiar. Day one started at a quarter to five with a glass of water, and there were twenty nine more after it.
I sat with my tea and worked out why I'd never opened it, either time. Getting a guide feels like starting. Opening it means day one, and nobody starts a thirty day plan on a wet Wednesday with a cold coming on. You wait for a good Monday, when you'll be ready to be the person who gets up at a quarter to five. I'd been waiting since February.
Then I picked up my envelope. Forty pages and thirty days of boxes. I'd been about to make the tenth.
Nobody was ever changed by a guide they didn't open. The one you open is the one that promises less.
So I crossed out the thirty days, then most of the forty pages. What was left follows one slow day, from a coffee at eight in the morning to seven in the evening, when the light turns orange. Two ideas for each hour, and one small thing to try with each.
I printed a copy when it was done. It lives at the other end of the kitchen table from the bills. Most mornings I read a page while the kettle boils, whichever page it's open at, and leave it there. This morning it was the two o'clock page, at ten past seven, and it didn't seem to mind.
The book is called The Long Afternoon, because I let the afternoon start at breakfast. It's free, it's twelve pages, and it's at the foot of this page. Yes, it wants an email address. I know. You leave one and it turns up in your inbox.
It may go straight into your downloads folder and stay there, next to somebody's Blueprint. That's allowed. If you do open it, one page with the kettle on is plenty. Don't expect it to change your life. It's twelve pages. It wouldn't know where to start.
I still haven't opened the second Blueprint. I'm pretty sure it's the same as the first, and I'm in no hurry to find out.
