As the days grow brighter and the temperature rises, I can feel my mood and energy rising with them. As if the light is not only touching the windows, but also something inside me. There is something in the body that slowly wakes up again. A desire to do things a little differently. Perhaps with less control, and with more feeling.

I am self-employed, and even though freedom is one of the main reasons I chose this path, I have still spent many years trying to press my working life into a fairly conventional shape. Working from 8 to 4, five days a week. As if that were the only proper way to take your work seriously.

But when you also teach, as I do, and that teaching often takes place in the evenings or on weekends, it quickly starts to feel slightly off. Not necessarily wrong, but off. As if the days do not quite fit the reality I am actually living in.

That is why I have decided to find a different rhythm. Not necessarily an easier rhythm, but one that feels more right for me. A way of working where I am not so ruled by time, but more by projects, energy and deep focus. And perhaps that is where something important begins.

Because this is not only about working hours. It is about the way we arrange our lives. The way we measure ourselves. The way we sometimes come to believe that value is connected to speed, efficiency and how much we can manage within a certain frame of time.

For the past many years, I have been extremely governed by time. Not just in a practical sense, where of course you need to keep track of appointments, deadlines and days. But in a way where time was almost present in everything I did. Where I constantly had an inner voice asking: How long is this taking? Shouldn’t you be finished by now? Is this efficient enough?

And I think many of us know that feeling.

We live in a time where being good at something is often confused with being fast at something. Where being productive can almost feel like a personal quality. Something we want to be known for. As if our value increases if we can get more done in less time.

But there is something about creating that does not really work that way.

When you create, it is not only about finishing. It is not only about the result. It is about the process. About being in contact with something. About letting your hands, your eyes and your intuition work together, without your head constantly needing to control it all.

One very concrete thing I have done is to take down the clock in my studio. I simply take it down when I work. A clock constantly reminds me how much time has passed. How much time I am spending. How quickly I should be finished.

It may sound like a small thing. And in a way, it is. But sometimes the small things are what change the most. Because when the clock is no longer hanging there on the wall, I am not constantly pulled out of what I am doing. I am not reminded of time in the same way. And slowly, it has given me a different way into creating and into being present in my working life.

Because when you create, it is not only about time. It is about flow.

Flow is the state where you become so absorbed in what you are doing that time almost loosens its grip on you. Where you are no longer constantly judging yourself from the outside, but simply present in what is happening right in front of you. Where the hands work before the mind has time to interrupt. Where the different elements — the shape, the colour and the feeling — begin to speak to each other.

Flow requires presence. It requires giving yourself over to what you are doing. It requires daring to be in the process without constantly measuring it. And that state can be difficult to reach when the goal first and foremost becomes performance.

And perhaps that is exactly why flow can feel so good to us as human beings. Because in those moments, we are not only performing. We are also existing. We are not only on our way towards something. We are in something.

I think we need places in life where we do not constantly have to explain, optimise or document. Where we do not have to keep account of every minute, but where we can simply be in motion.

For me, flow often appears when I am developing a piece of clothing. When I sit with a project between my hands and slowly feel something begin to take shape. It can be a small adjustment, a detail, a stitch, a decision about a colour or a drape. It can be something that looks insignificant from the outside, but inside the process feels absolutely essential.

And perhaps that is what I had forgotten a little. That creating cannot always be pressed into a schedule. Of course, you can plan. Of course, you can have deadlines. But creation itself has its own rhythm. It needs space. Not endless space, but a kind of inner space.

I have spent the past six months trying to find my way back to the joy of sewing and creating. And a large part of that has actually been about giving myself more freedom. About not making so many rules for myself. About not setting up a frame before I have even begun.

Because rules can be good. They can create direction. They can help us make decisions. But they can also become so tight that they suffocate the very thing that was meant to be allowed to live. I think that is what I am learning. No, relearning. Because a decade of tight deadlines, time optimisation and digital platforms has worn that part of me down a little.

To set myself a little free. To not always need to know exactly where something will end before I begin. To allow myself to enter the process without having figured everything out. To let something take the time it takes. Not because time does not matter, but because some things lose their power if we only measure them in minutes.

Perhaps, in the end, it is about trust. Trust in the process. Trust in my hands. And trust that the act of creating has value even before it becomes something finished.

To me, flow is not something grand or solemn. It is not a big, abstract state I have to perform my way into. It is simply the moment where I no longer think about the time it takes, but instead enjoy the fact that I am doing what I am doing.

And perhaps that is exactly where the joy lives. Not necessarily in the finished result. Not only in what can be shown to others. But in the quiet space where time loosens its grip, and for a while, I do not have to reach anything other than what I am already in the middle of.

L O V E

Nanna

NOTES from Nanna - When Time Loosens Its Grip