#1 of 100 days of gratitude.

In October, aware that my usual bleak mid-winter mood would probably be darker during quarantine, I decided to post something I was grateful for, on my personal Facebook feed, every day for 100 days.

I started by thanking my friend Jo Rawbone, the calm voice behind the excellent podcast The Flourishing Introvert, whose own 100 postings had inspired mine.

Then on day two, my extremely needy cat Amber, who was sitting in her usual place on my desk, watching my hands move across the keyboard and hoping for attention.

More of us are working from home than ever before.

And increasing numbers of employers are saying they never expect their staff to come back into the office full-time.

So it’s worth now examining where you work, how you work — and investing a little to do it more easily. If you are in full-time employment, your company might help with this. If you’re not, set yourself up to work as healthily as possible, investing bit by bit.

You don’t need the perfect set-up. Although I now have a room of my own to work in (bliss!), my study certainly doesn’t look like those perfect Pinterest mood boards. The person…

When is the best time to start a creative project?

The answer is nearly always now. We all have projects we dream of doing. But we’re waiting for the time to be right.

We tell ourselves we need to think about it a little more, to wait until we’ve got more time, more space, more money. Until our day job is less demanding, the to-do list is done, the children are a little older or we finally have a workspace to ourselves..

We convince ourselves that we need more experience to start, more skills, an expensive bit of kit that we can’t quite afford right now. We need to hang…

In the last year, I read 79 books.

Weirdly, this was 21 less than the year before, but then we didn’t go on holiday or travel at all, and I often found it hard to concentrate — especially in those anxious months of the first lockdown.

I frequently found myself reading several pages, then having to go back and read them again. Or lying on the sofa at night watching Netflix, constantly refreshing newsfeeds on my iPad. (Wonder how I put on so much weight?)

To be clear, these weren’t all published in 2020. They’re just books I read in the last 12 months, fact and fiction.

Piranesi

This…

So goodbye, 2020. A year like no other.

I’m almost exactly 10kg heavier than I was a year ago. I’ve spent more time on Zoom than I thought was possible. I’ve been to London just twice since March, and once to Birmingham to spend a couple of hours with my mum. Other than that, like most of us, I’ve spent most of this year under house arrest — only without an ankle bracelet. Or much hope of parole.

But there have been hidden gifts. We’ve learned to appreciate everyday things we once took for granted, and discover what’s really important. …

New Year’s resolutions just don’t work.

At the end of December, most of us come up with a well-meaning list of goals and resolutions. And by the middle of January, most of us have again failed to keep them.

This doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you. Or any of us. We just need to explore new ways of finding focus — especially in 2021, when it’s harder than ever to make firm plans.

January is an awful month for a fresh start, in the northern hemisphere. The nights are long and dark. It’s cold outside. We’re normally tired from the whirl of holiday parties…

This has been a year like no other.

We all probably want to put it behind us as soon as possible, but because of that, it’s still worth taking some time to reflect on it. I do this every year, and always find it useful. But this time my process was a little different. So here’s how to review 2020.

Go through your calendar for the year.

It probably won’t be as full as previous years! But nonetheless, make a note of everything you’ve achieved, everything you’re proud of, everything you’ve learned.

Be especially kind, this year.

Acknowledge the small victories, and let go of what could have been, without a global pandemic.

We’ve all found resilience we didn’t know…

Let’s talk about The Fear.

Because it’s never far away, when we’re doing our work. At some point in your creative cycle — maybe even at several points — The Fear will come.

There’s no avoiding this. It happens to all of us. The key is knowing how to deal with it.

This is what it looks like, when The Fear is in control.

• We have a day set aside for writing, and we end up painting a wall instead.
• We are about to start a new artwork, so we’re cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. (Or eating their contents.)
• We have an important audition. Yet we leave late, and arrive flustered.
• It’s time to show our work…