Hey everyone,

I hope you all are doing well.

To my readers in India, especially, I hope you are safe and are keeping yourself mentally and emotionally strong in the midst of the utter chaos around us. To those in other parts of the world, I hope you've taken your two shots and are slowly starting to go out. In any case, please be careful every one of you.

I've found that in the midst of all that's happening around, the only way to stay sane is to focus inward and to take things one day at a time. My early morning practice of being still and writing for about half an hour, has helped me immensely.

Intentional Focus

If you read my blog regularly, you'll find that I am following up on my Word of The Year, 'Yes', by intentionally focusing(read the post to find out more) on somethings in May. The batching was working for me. Until our city went into lockdown again. We can only be out and about from 6.00 am to 10.00 am. So our schedule had to undergo some changes.

Rather than throw in the towel and be overwhelmed and uninspired, I've decided to step away to focus. I won't be writing on Everyday Gyaan for about a month. I want to focus on The Frangipani Creative for a while.

This brings me to the question : how you deal with things when you feel you've bitten off more than you can chew? Do you give it all up and say "I can't do it."? I'd love to hear from you about this.

I've learned to put everything aside and start working on some simple daily tasks. Start small, first prioritizing by due dates, then create outlines and steps for the other projects at hand. Step away, take time for a breather (plan some fun activities), change your attitude, and you'll see how things fall into place.

Making Time For Fun

As part of my being intentionally focused in May, on Saturdays, I spend an hour doing some creative activity or learning a new skill. It could be as simple as learning to use coloured pencils more effectively. I did that and it was fun! I found plenty of useful and free courses on Skillshare.

It might sound crazy, but I even made a list of movies to watch every Sunday. The three movies I watched on Amazon Prime recently are the Malayalam film, The Great Indian Kitchen, the Spanish film, Home Office and the Tamil film, Maara. Each of these were so different, yet really absorbing too. Incidentally, watching 'foreign' language films helps you look at different cultures and new perspectives. Let the language be like a puzzle you figure out based on actions. A good creativity exercise, for sure! What movies have you watched recently? Any recommendations?

I realize this newsletter is a couple of days late, but I just had to get it out to keep my promise of two newsletters a month. I'd appreciate feedback on how you like it - what works, what doesn't and any suggestions. Thank you.

Stay strong, stay safe and stay hopeful!

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