Too Many Words in Your Life?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of words in your life?
​Think about it. You probably start the day by checking your phone for messages and emails, and maybe you'll also have a look at social media, just to find out what's going on and what you've missed while you've been asleep. Then you might go onto a news website and catch up on the headlines.

​Next it's off to work. Reports to read, reports to write, emails to read and respond to. PowerPoint presentations. Staff appraisals. On and on those words go. And lunchtime is probably spent on your phone or tablet surfing social media.

​Back home and there's more social media, and then you get to write your own stuff - the novel or poem or short story you're working on. A whole day full of words.

​It struck me recently how full of words my life has become, and I've added to the volume of words by returning to study. Lots of books to read, seminars to prepare for, and lots of essays to write. Don't get me wrong - I love words. Words are my bread and butter. But sometimes, you can have too much of a good thing.

​So at New Year I decided that instead of writing a list of everything I wanted to do, be and have this year, I'd cut pictures out of magazines and make a collage in my bullet journal. Not only was it fun to play around with scissors and glue, and deciding on the arrangement of the pictures, but seeing the pictures gave me a much more powerful emotional attachment to what I want from this year.

​It's said a picture paints a thousand words, and that's true, but it also creates an emotional response. You can write out what you want and why you want it, but making a picture of it so that you can spend time gazing at it and reconnecting with those emotions, is a powerful way to remind yourself of what it is you want in your life, and what's important to you.