Creating A Slow Corner In Your Home
Here’s something I’ve noticed: every time I post about Slow Down Sundays on Instagram, I get a certain reaction. Usually the specific content of the post gets less attention than the concept of slowing down itself – and not having the time or space to do it. Slower living is not easy – our society is set up to be fast, to make us buy and use, to throw things at us, to try and grab our attention for longer than 3 seconds and to stop us thinking things through. It wants impulse and speed and right here right now.Particularly when you have families and businesses to run, finding time and space to slow down slips not only down the priority list, but also down the possibility list.Although I don’t yet have a family (does a dog count as a child?!), working from home has been a balance challenge I hadn’t anticipated. I find it hard to come down from my little office until it's nearly bedtime; doing anything not work-related feels like a waste of time, and as such my multi-tasking is out of control (I even caught myself what work I could do while doing yoga...); I’ve stopped putting time and energy into food and other pleasures and am blinkered by Instagram, podcasts and words.
Slow Down Sundays was intended as a way of forcing myself to incorporate more simple living principles and activities into my lifestyle – basically, if I can make it work, I might do it. And I’ve been thinking a lot about place, and it’s importance in our mindset.Don’t you find that places in your home become imbued with certain connotations and emotions? And that these can prevent you from feeling a certain way or doing certain things when you are in those places?For example, our sofa is, to me, a place of laziness. Always piled with blankets because the dog sleeps there during the day, it is a sort of nest that lulls you; I’ve fallen asleep on that sofa probably almost as much as I’ve slept in my own bed. The sofa reminds me of sleepy evenings and Sunday afternoons in our old house, a place where Dan and I would veg out watching awful TV and I might half-arsedly try to do some work. It is not a place of serenity, nor a place of productivity; it feels messy, chaotic and lazy.
On the other hand, my office is pure productivity - although it’s fluffy around the edges it’s all work at its heart. Light and bright, it’s a place of clarity and direction – I really like to be there, but despite having a comfy day bed, it’s not a place to realistically relax being only two steps from my desk.Thinking about this, I felt that perhaps it would be useful for all of us to have a designated ‘slow corner’. A nook or cranny that embraces us when we walk in and says “slow down here”. Somewhere we know not to bring work, and that the kids are trained to avoid, shrine-like. If there is a place in our homes that we can sow with seeds of slowness, those connotations can take root and grow into a little zen area to help you get more of that lifestyle you crave. If time and space is an issue for so many of us when it comes to slowing down, perhaps a 'slow corner' can help with the latter.
How To Create Your Slow Corner
Make it a physical space
Your slow corner must be a physical space in order to take on all the connotations we’ve been speaking about. I know this is obvious but so often we, particularly as women, refuse to take up space just for ourselves. It feels wasteful, or we don’t feel worthy. Empower yourself by giving over a small space in your home just to you – maybe it’s a chair, a windowsill, a big comfy cushion. Just take up your space (and if you need more inspiration on this, read Mel Wiggins’ empowering blog post on the subject).
Fill it with what slow means to you
My corner has the bookshelf and a chair cosy with cushions and blankets in it, plus a strategically placed coaster for tea. It has my favourite prints in touching distance and sits in a slant of light from the window. Basically, everything I need to slow down and relax is there, so I don’t have any excuses of going to get things or moving around for not using it. Perhaps you keep a basket of wool ready for knitting, slippers to slip into or just keep your to-read pile nearby.
Make it somewhere lovely to be
I’ve kept my favourite cushions and favourite prints for use in my slow corner; I use a chair that we didn’t really need but I fell in love with and couldn’t stop thinking about; I drink from my favourite cup. Why? Because I needed to make my slow corner a place I would love to be, a place that was filled with things that I loved so that it would be powerful enough to call me away from work. If you make your slow corner cosy and comfortable, then you’ll be more likely to use it and actually slow down.
Don’t use it for anything else
We ask a lot of our homes and many spaces need to be multi-use and multi-functional (I've written about this in these interior design commandments). But your slow corner needs to be kept sacred in order for it to fulfil its purpose. Don’t use it to sit and scroll on your phone, or catch up on some work, or start to pile the washing up on it. This is why we’re building a corner, not a whole room – your corner should be small enough to be justifiably kept away from the multi-functionality elsewhere in your home.
Do you already have a slow corner? Or how are you planning to do yours?
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