Pause and Smell the Flowers

At the beginning of the year, if someone had told me:

• That as work ended and sitting in the comfort of my home, I would be able to see the most glorious of all sunsets with the sky turning from a flaming orange to a peachy orange to a purply pink
• That I would, over two days, watch a fly past of glorious butterflies on their migratory return from the east of India to the west and that some of them would flit in and out of my work area
• That I could look up from my desk and watch bulbuls and sunbirds and tits and kites and crows belt their little birdsong as they swung on our terrace palms 10 feet away from me
• That, over a span of 24 hours I would be able to identify 12 species of birds around me and would soon learn to recognise them and their sounds
• That at the end of a day’s work, I could walk just a few steps to pick fresh, newly grown red currant tomatoes or strawberry guavas
• That a break from work would mean a walk to check on my carefully cultivated black sunflowers or smell fragrant hoya
• That I could take our dog for a walk every day, exercise at home regularly, be a more disciplined eater
• And that, amidst all this, I would still do all my regular work (perhaps even more),

I would never have believed them.

Nor would I ever have believed anyone who would have said that I would be at my desk with a DSLR camera at my side to capture the world around me. 

And yet, ten months into the year, how much has changed! Time, such a precious commodity earlier lost to the pressures and demands of fast-paced city life, has been reclaimed and is now within my control. Sunsets that were occasionally spotted on one’s drive back home from work are now my canvas every day. The noise and chatter of city roads and the buzz of office life have been replaced by the occasional hoots of a train, the call of the muezzin from mosques in the neighbourhood, and most of all, birdsong. There is a rhythm and routine to my day much like at the office, but the rhythm and routine have been injected with new meaning and purpose that requires one to just let go, be more aware and immerse in the experience. Perhaps like slow fashion and slow food, this is what slow work is about.

“The slow-work movement focuses on mindfulness, creativity, and a balanced working environment…it emphasizes using your time in a more meaningful and productive way by taking controlled breaks and devoting your energy to focus on individual tasks,” says Paul Gentile, workplace collaboration expert. “When you learn to embrace the slow work movement, you’ll find yourself ahead of the game...learn to stop scrambling and smell the roses,” adds Alisiana Peters, a senior marketing coordinator.

It’s been 20 years since we’ve lived in this apartment through which I‘ve spent many days at the same desk although seated at a different part of it now (it is a long S-shaped desk) and so have a different view. Yet it’s not the view that has changed anything as much as mindfulness that swept through during the initial stages of the lockdown -  when all sounds ceased to exist (even the trains and the muezzin’s call) except for bird chatter - and has continued since. 

Time Magazine may have talked about the need to embrace slow work way back in 2012 in a contributed article that said “the philosophy of ‘slow work’ challenges the unsustainable practice of doing everything as fast as possible and offers an alternative workplace framework for energizing people and helping people better align their personal and professional priorities”. Many of us are living it now as our workplace morphs into our home space. I  wonder what this could mean for how workplaces of the future are designed and what would need to change when we all eventually return back to the office and need variety and breaks in our routine, or a bird song or two.

PS: All images taken from my workspace at home