How to slow your life down
Machines are designed to run constantly, people are not, says Do Pause author Robert Poynton. To prosper, we need to learn to stop, reset and regenerate
By 
Psychologies
2 minute read
Reset yourself every time you enter a doorway. Pause briefly before you go into a room or meeting – a moment for a personal stocktake. Whether it’s greeting your family after a long day at work or facing colleagues in the office, use this pause time to remember who you are about to see and what they mean to you.
Reframe your commute
View your travel time as a chance to take note of how you’re feeling and create a little space between you and those emotions, rather than letting them take possession of you. Choose to see your journey as an in-between place in its own right. Don’t regard it as a void to be filled – avoid reading, listening to the radio or music and checking email or social media. See what occurs and what you observe – both about the journey and yourself.
Notice your pace of life
Visualise how time feels. Use the binary code of ‘1’ and ‘0’ to represent two types of experience. The strong, sharp straight ‘1’ is busy, intense activity. The round, empty ‘0’ is a calm, spacious experience. Consider a period of time – a day, week, month, season or year. Don’t overthink it, but use as many zeros and ones to represent how that time feels. A lazy day at home might look like 000001100000 or a busy week at work might be 1111100111110011111 0011111001111100. Try it with longer periods. This exercise will show you where you may need time to reset. Let yourself experiment.
‘Do Pause: You Are Not A To Do List’ by Robert Poynton (The Do Book Company, £8.99) is out now.
Image: Getty
