How many minutes have you taken for yourself today?

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It's official. Superwoman is dead!

Not from overwork or stress related illness, but apparently from apathy. According to a recent report, we just don’t care about being perfect anymore!

So why do I still feel guilty most of the time? Guilty if my husband doesn’t have a clean shirt to wear (couldn’t he have told me his stash of shirts were about to stage a coup in the laundry basket); guilty when I don’t cook from scratch; guilty when I have to arrange a play date to cover my work date; guilty that I don’t have a fresh batch of muffins in the oven (okay, that’s never going to happen).

The English language is designed to make us feel bad about taking time for ourselves. Steal a moment? Robbed of time? A quick cuppa (is there such a thing?).

Most women I know never take a moment for themselves. We seem to be on an endless quest of cleaning, tidying, cooking, tidying, ironing, tidying...and yet my house still looks a mess! Add work and work related activities to this maelstrom and it’s no wonder that we barely sit down from dawn till dusk.

So what would happen if we took the time to ‘just be’? Would the sun fall out the sky, would the waves refuse to come up the shore, would the whole world stop turning?

Of course not. So is there any harm in putting our own world on hold for a little while?

Actually, we do our best work when we take the time to ‘just be’. It’s in moments of peace that inspiration comes to us. If we quieten our mind then the unconscious has an opportunity to bring to the fore the answers we’ve been looking for and the tasks that we should give more importance too.

Sometimes, it’s a case of taking some time off, in the words of Colin Firth in Mamma Mia, “quite spontaneously” ...

(read my blog article ‘Sitting waiting for inspiration’)

So if you get a call from a friend inviting you round for a quick cuppa then GO. I know there’s no quick cuppa but what’s the worst that can happen if your husband doesn’t have a clean shirt for tomorrow or the family have to eat takeout for a change?

Spontaneity and time out are my gift to you today.

And if your other half gets on to you, teach him how to work the washing machine.