Happy Mondays: Be mindful how you spend your time

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Doing nothing for 15 minutes a day with no distractions to collect our thoughrs

Minding the gap, noticing the spaces or finding the time between constant duties and anxious thoughts is an investment in self–awareness and peace.

Too often the modern cri de coeur is: "There's too much to do and not enough time!" It's as if life and its demands have grown monstrously out of proportion and have rampantly railroaded us into cowering submission.

The simple answer is there is enough time – just be mindful how you spend it.

Time wasting includes overanalysing, seeking perfection, multi–tasking, over committing (to look good/people please), not saying "no" enough, filling every minute with over–stimulating distractions (emails/music on headphones/ texting) and procrastination.

However we all possess Harry Potter–like wizardry that not only enables us to make more time but to do more magical things than we ever dreamed possible.

You have to make time to write a book, to get fit or to learn something new and that means taking your dream seriously enough to set aside space in your life. With two children in their early teens and a summer holiday to deal with I set my alarm at 4am for six weeks in order to write a book uninterrupted – and to deadline. I'm not smug but I was determined to do it.

One has to schedule one's exercise, gym trips, jogs and meditations or that great stampeding buffalo of time will run away with you across the vast wasted lands of distraction, meaningless chores and mindnumbing fogginess.

We need to mind the gaps in our thinking

Carole Ann Rice

But equally I am a huge fan of actively doing nothing at all: of goofing off, leaving behind the problems and stress and allowing some creative loafing to act as an investment in energy and productivity.

In a world of crazy busyness this is often considered a deviant and reckless option. It is seen as almost sinful while frittering away your time in the guise of being "busy" appears infinitely respectable.

Doing less can mean so much more. We need to "mind the gaps" in our thinking all the time.

Oprah Winfrey's life coach Martha Beck insists we commit to finding 15 minutes a day to stare at a wall with no distractions and witness the runaway train of our thoughts.

In her book The Joy Diet she writes: "When you add doing nothing to your schedule, you may feel you're courting the kind of torpor that turns lazy people into abject failures. But the more 'nothing' you do, the more you will see that there has always been, and always will be, a part of you that accomplishes more with stillness than you could with frenzied action."

So not only mind the gaps but find the spaces between words, chores and pauses in life where we can reconnect, listen to our true selves and find the answers we seek and, ironically, the time we crave.

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Special thanks this week to retired detective Roger Parnell of Huddersfield who emailed me some wonderful malapropisms uttered by his late aunties Violet and Gladys.

One day Gladys was waxing lyrical about her son's new girlfriend: "Our Ken's got a lovely girlfriend. She's got a good job. She's a 'shortest typehand'."

Violet, whose son lived in South Africa with his family and wanted to book a flight to visit them at a time when there had been a lot of hijackings said: "I'm a bit worried about this as anything can happen, especially as those men hitch–hiked a plane to Cuba."

A nod of gratitude to Pauline Percival of North Yorkshire whose mother's friend Bea once exclaimed: "The doctor has put me on them asteroids."

I love her cosmic take on things. More please.

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Studies have shown that taking notes by hand helps the brain absorb more information

• Few of us could live without our laptops and they give us the world's accumulated knowledge at the touch of a finger. But if you want to learn in a sustainable way it's time to go back to pen and paper.

Studies have shown that students who take notes by hand absorb more than those who tap lessons into a laptop.

When we type our brains are merely transcribing whereas you listen, summarise and make key points when you write. Take note.

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How did "Dry January" go? Have you stuck to your prune juice and dawn jogging regime? Research has shown that denying our natural choices – chocolate, pizza and wine – can be counter to our goals and dreams. In fact say no for long enough and you could well be sabotaging your best–laid plans.

Too much willpower and refusal to give in to temptation can cause something called ego depletion, which means the more temptation you resist the harder it will be to say no to the next tempting treat.

Punitive measures don't work and a little of what you fancy not only does you good but sets you up for success.

Oscar Wilde said: "I can resist anything except temptation." Make that sound like a self–help mantra.

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