Boots and fresh air

Matt Limb OBE explains why a brisk walk in the countryside is the best reset you can have.

A quiet shift has taken place over the past 20 or 30 years, and it is one many of us have accepted without ever quite stopping to think or question it.

The working day, as it once was, has largely disappeared. In its place has come something far less defined. Work no longer begins and ends at a fixed point in time. Instead, it follows us. In the pocket, in the car, on the kitchen table and often late into the evening.

I can still remember when the idea of a computer in every home was spoken of with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. It was signalled as a tool that would reduce workload by streamlining routine tasks and, perhaps most appealingly, give us more free time.

There was, at that time, a genuine expectation that future technology would lighten the burden.

But as we now know, what followed has been rather different. Quickly, the cumbersome desk-bound machine gave way to the laptop, and the laptop to a device in the hand.

With that came the quiet erosion of boundaries. The end of the working day became less certain. A message here, a call there, a meeting arranged across several time zones at an hour that would once have been unthinkable.

But this is not to criticise it. For many, particularly those running their own small businesses or working independently, it has opened doors that simply would not have existed before.

The ability to remain connected, to respond quickly, and to operate without geographical or time constraint has been a genuine business advantage.

But with that freedom has come a question that is rarely asked. Where does it stop?

Because constant activity and constant availability do not necessarily equate to constant effectiveness. Often, they work in quite the opposite direction. There is, it seems to me, a balance that has quietly slipped out of alignment.

Work/life balance
There was, not so long ago, a clear and understood divide between work and the rest of the day. You went home and work finished.

Once you stepped away from it, that was it. The door closed, quite literally in many cases, and with it went the demands of the job. The evening belonged to something else entirely. Time at home, a meal taken without interruption, conversation that did not drift back to unfinished tasks or unanswered messages.

It may not have been a perfect system, but it was a defined one.

You were either at work, or you were not. And in that distinction, there was a certain freedom. The mind had space to settle. Thoughts could move on. Even the simplest routines of the evening had a value that perhaps was not fully appreciated at the time, just because they were uninterrupted.

There was no expectation of an immediate and urgent response, no impending pressure of something waiting just out of sight. If a matter could not be dealt with that day, it waited until the next.

That separation did something important, whether we recognised it or not. It allowed for a proper pause, a resetting, between one day and the next. What has crept in since is not only longer hours, but the removal of that pause and separation altogether.

If that separation has been lost, then it needs to be reintroduced. And in practical terms, there is really only one way to do it. At some point, the phone is put down, the laptop is closed, and the stream of incoming demands is allowed to carry on without you.

The result may surprise you.

That sounds straightforward, but within the walls of the house it is rarely as easy as it should be. The devices are there, within reach, and with them the quiet temptation to check just one more message, respond to one more email, resolve one more task before the evening is over.

It is perhaps why the phrase “screen time detox” has found its way into common use. It is a neat description, though often wrapped up in something far more elaborate than it needs to be. There is no requirement for a week away in some remote, signal-free retreat on a green only, plant-based diet, nor any great upheaval of routine. Often, it is something much simpler.

A decision over a point in the day where work stops, without compromise and something else takes its place. Time that is not shared with a screen, not interrupted and not quietly tethered to the next demand.

And importantly, it does not have to be rigid. It need not be every morning or every evening, nor fixed to a particular daily hour. For many, especially those working from home or managing their own time, it can be fitted around the day as it unfolds. Between calls, after an online meeting, or before the next task begins. But it does need to be planned. Left to chance, it is too easily lost.

Take a walk
For many of us, that place is found quite naturally in the countryside.

A few weeks ago, I came across the suggestion that one of the best daily habits for both physical and mental wellbeing is something remarkably simple. A walk in the countryside. Not hurried, but purposeful.

Enough to stretch the legs and clear the head, not to leave you out of breath, but just enough to feel the benefit without turning it into something overly demanding.

For me, it offers far more than any time spent in a gym ever could. Not because there is anything wrong with structured gym exercise, but because it brings with it the same sense of routine, tasks and obligation that so much of the working day already demands.

The gym becomes another booked slot in the diary, with another list of tasks to complete in a time frame.

A walk outdoors is something quite different. There is no fixed pattern to it. No requirement beyond the simple act of stepping outside and heading out. Fresh air, a change of ground underfoot, and a pace that allows the mind to settle rather than race ahead.

It is worth stating plainly what that offers. Time outdoors improves physical health through steady exercise, but just as importantly it clears the mind, reduces stress and restores a sense of perspective that is easily lost during the working day.

And if there is one thing that makes it all but unavoidable, it is a dog. There is no greater encouragement to step away from the desk and no better companion once you have done so.

A dog can be the encouragement that cannot be ignored. Plus, a dog has little interest in emails, deadlines or conference calls and in that lies the value.

For that short time, you are drawn into something far simpler. It is, perhaps, one of the easiest ways to reclaim that sense of separation that has been lost.

In truth, the hardest part is rarely the walk itself. It is the moment before it. Putting on a coat, pulling on a pair of boots, and stepping out through the door with a dog by your side. That small decision, more than anything else, is where this is won, or lost.

Time for a reset
More often than not, once outside, the rest tends to take care of itself.

The pace finds its own tempo, the mind begins to settle, and what felt pressing only moments before starts to lose its urgency.

So often problems and issues have a habit of rearranging themselves when given a little time and space.

It is not complicated, and it does not require a great deal of time. But it does require intent. And perhaps that is the point. In a day that is increasingly shaped by demands from elsewhere, it is one small thing that can still be chosen for yourself.

I was reminded of this not so long ago, though the moment itself goes back a few years and has stayed with me since. I had taken the dogs out with nothing more in mind than a familiar route of a couple of miles. A walk I had done many times before, one that required little thought.

After perhaps half a mile, we came to a fallen tree that we would so often pass without pause. For some reason that day, we did not.

I stepped across and sat down for a moment. The dogs followed, noses down, quietly working the ground around me. What was intended to be no more than a short brief pause became something very different.
Above, a pair of red kites circled on the rising air. Off to one side, a brown hare moved steadily across the field, untroubled and entirely unaware of my presence, and it would appear the dogs’ presence as well. All the while, the background was filled with birdsong.

I had planned to sit for a minute or two before moving on. In the end, it must have been the best part of an hour, before a walk back home.

Nothing had changed in any obvious sense as I returned to my desk. The work I had left behind was still there, waiting as it always does. But the mind had cleared and the rest of the day felt altogether more manageable.

It is a small thing, easily overlooked, but no less valuable for that.

day may feel, they count for little if you are not in a position to meet them properly.

Being fit, clear-headed and ready is not a luxury, but a necessity. And sometimes the simplest way to achieve that is to step outside, into our countryside and allow yourself the time to reset.

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