Not a detox. Not a cleanse. Thirty-one things worth doing, one a day, for the evenings in October when the light goes early and the phone is the path of least resistance.
Pick the ones that suit you and ignore the rest. Nobody manages thirty-one.
Week one — notice
- Name five sounds you can hear right now.
- Find one square foot of ground and list what is living in it.
- Watch the sun go down without photographing it.
- Learn the name of one tree on your street.
- Write down three smells you associate with October.
- Count the birds from one window for ten minutes.
- Walk a street in your suburb you have never walked down.
Week two — make
- Cook something without looking up a recipe.
- Build the tallest freestanding tower you can from what is in the room.
- Make a paper plane that actually flies, then improve it twice.
- Draw your own hand.
- Mend one thing instead of replacing it.
- Write a letter on paper and post it.
- Bake something you were given the recipe for by a person, not a screen.
Week three — talk
- Ask someone older than you one specific question about their twenties.
- Have dinner with no phone on the table.
- Ring somebody instead of messaging them.
- Ask a child what they think about something serious.
- Tell somebody a story about themselves they have not heard.
- Sit with someone in silence for ten minutes on purpose.
- Say the thing you have been meaning to say.
Week four — keep
- Write down one memory before it goes.
- Sort ten photographs and label them on the back.
- Copy out a recipe in your own handwriting.
- Find the oldest object in your house and write down where it came from.
- Ask where your name came from.
- Write a page about the house you grew up in.
- Start a list of the things only you know.
- Read something on paper for an hour.
- Do nothing at all for twenty minutes.
- Plan November’s one thing.
There is a printable seven-day version — four activities a day split by age, plus a question for the evening table — free, with no sign-up wall, here.