Is My Slow Living Slow Enough?

The Internet is a wild place to be at the best of times. It can a tonic to the soul, connecting you to people from all walks of life with just the same set of interests as you, or it can be a breeding ground for comparison and negative thoughts.

I see it as a happy-ish balance of both.

The art of slow living is one that was brought to my attention by way of blogs. In short, it’s ‘a lifestyle emphasising slower approaches to aspects of everyday life’.

According to the Sloww website, it is also ‘about well-being and doing everything as well as possible instead of as fast as possible. Slow living is conscious, intentional, mindful, and living deeply. Slow living is an organic and natural way of living’.

When I discovered the slow living movement, I’d recently gone freelance. I had two permanent, long-term clients and a handful of shorter-lead clients, and almost no commitments. I loosely hoped to own my own home.

I now worked from home and rarely had to rush for a commuter train. It seemed like the ideal style of living for me, where I could really embrace my new freelance career and use it to change the way I approached my days.

Slowly (heh) but surely, I incorporated elements of slow living to my day and carved out my own take on slow living. Waking later (I’m a night owl when it comes to work and productivity, so this made perfect sense), tackling emails from my bed, going for a long dog walk in the morning, limiting myself to three main to-do’s each day, making time to exercise…

These days, I definitely don’t function in the same way. I found that living slowly was hindering my personal and professional growth because I wasn’t getting as much as I personally wanted done. Whilst there are certainly clear benefits to tackling one task at a time, I’m a natural multi-tasker and thrive on juggling a few things at once.

I’d say that about 14 hours of my day are spent on work-related things. From the actual work to the networking, the admin to the planning, I’m go-go-go a lot of the time but I make it work for me. Most other aspects of my life are ‘slow living’ methods, but then I began to wonder. Am I living slow enough?!

After all, I was cramming in a full-time freelance business, fitness schedule, a blog and Instagram, and all of the busy realities of being a human. That didn’t feel slow to me.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that slow living can be interpreted however you wish it.

Today I would say I lead a mindful lifestyle, in which I take time to tackle each task, trial and tribulation that comes to me. I am intentional in all that I do, whether that be the grocery shop or a simple everyday decision, the way I spend my everyday, and I am grounded by the way I make those decisions, considering the possible outcomes as well as the effects my choices make on the world around me.

Is it ‘slow’? Heck no! Have you seen me get ready in the morning after I’ve decided on another ill-considered lie-in?! But it is perfect for me, right now.