I spend all day sat behind a computer. For health and safety (and sanity) reasons it is alway good to get away from the screen. Occasionally I may even go to the work canteen, but most of the time I have a packed lunch (which I can eat at my desk). Like alot of working folk I have very little free time. After work, food, chores, etc there is usually have very little time to switch off with something fun and relaxing even if the energy is available, so days can go past with no hobby activity. I'm sure most of you know that NO HOBBY = UNHAPPINESS. So I decided to spend my available lunch half hour doing hobby stuff and kill 2 birds with one stone.
Obviously there are restrictions in what I can do at Work in half an hour blocks. Sitting down and painting is out (in fact pretty much any painting is out). Construction with a bit of gluing, however, is very much a possibility. The office in which I work is next to the graphics dept, so I have access to large cutting mats and can occassionally scrounge the odd bit of scrappage. I've been using my lunchtimes like this on and off for a few months, so they are used to me coming in making "odd" constructions. My Dog Soldiers Barn was a previous Lunch-time Project (see below) and I've spent quite a few lunches making card stock houses as well. (also see below). Progress is understandably slow, but that isn't the main purpose of the exercise. Hobby, mental rest and "not work" are the watch words here. So watch this space as a new project is dawning...
I love this idea :) I work from home at the moment, and I might just introduce this type of thing into my workday, sounds brilliant!
ReplyDeleteThe Dog Soldiers project is brilliant too, haven't seen that film in ages!
Interesting post! I've been thinking about using my lunchtimes productively like this but also as a very necessary stressbuster at the same time.
ReplyDeleteOn a practical level, the best thing I could do is to prep miniatures - freeing time in the evenings to paint.
I'll think seriously about this now.
Cheers
Mark
I find I'm a bit more relaxed (stress wise) about the construction as I know progress will be gradual due to available time. I don't give myself any deadline for most of these projects so they quite often end up being more fun.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how gradual as the WIP weeks go by.
I too work from home, which makes things a little easier. For me, I have discovered that having a ‘lunch-time’ project without any deadlines, separate from any main project, works very well. This avoids me having to rush a bit of work on the main project due to lunch break constraints.
ReplyDelete