Sometimes stuff happens. Like it’s Thursday and you still have that Monday Morning Feeling.

Guess what? Work-Life balance? No! More like zero balance and you really do need to shape up big time. Sorry to be so blunt, but this isn’t normal, it isn’t good and if it has been going on very  long you need to make a fundamental shift of the dynamic.

I have an easy start for you and it is free. All it takes is two hours a week. Two hours all in one go and if you cannot even fit that into your schedule you need serious professional help to realise that you are not really as important as you imagine.

For these two hours you will be alone. Just some  ‘you with you’ time. No spouse, lover, kids, dogs, best buddy or forever friend. Believe me; you will appreciate them more as a result. Sound like a recipe for selfishness? Too damned right it is because, out of selfishness comes selflessness and that’s where you can favourably impact on others as well as yourself. You need to get your head together.

How you use those 120 minutes is up to you as long as you do something you have never done before, or at least not for a long time. You must get out of the house. If you normally drive take a walk, a taxi, train or bus … to anywhere new; Town, country, shop, beach, cinema, gallery, archaeology dig, radio studio. Come on! I cannot do it all for you.

You set off with no agenda and no expectations thus you cannot possibly fail. The hardest part of this time out period is making a date with yourself and sticking to it. That is so important that it needs repeating. Make a date with yourself and stick to it. Leave your mobile phone and all other gadgets behind. Believe me, the world won’t stop just because you are not wired for info for a couple of hours. Remember that no-one is indispensable. Not even you. Be unplugged. It won’t hurt.

During this period you will open your mind, you may find thoughts that flicker and pass immediately whilst others can start a chain that you are fascinated to follow … just to see where they lead. For two hours each week you can forget your worries, responsibilities, doubts, fears and obligations.

About here you will be coming up with all manner of excuses why you cannot and will not follow this simple suggestion. Maybe you have been lugging all your emotional baggage around for so long that you feel naked without it. That’s OK too. Naked is good in the right time and place although it is not my thing, especially in winter!

When my beloved and I owned an hotel we each had a half day off alone, with no questions asked by the other. When we had a shop, she and the staff looked after the customers while I looked after the backstage admin. Again, we each took time out and enjoyed one another all the more as a result. Now we still have half a day each week to do our own thing.

This stuff is innocent and simple and it works. Discover more in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way where she takes this idea to new levels, with full explanations, as an ‘artist’s date’.

You have nothing to lose except that Monday Morning Feeling? Accept a little tough love and discipline along these lines to achieve massive gains in happy contentment.