In our START OF WEEK template we created 5 parts to the start of week ritual. These steps allow you to start your week in a conscious and clear way. The great thing about starting the week with a ritual is that you start it with attention and a good intention that will support you throughout your week.
We love to share some of our designs, to give you an idea of what you can do with the template. In this blog we will tell you about the first step of the template:
Create the space
Why create space for a ritual?
A ritual is something that requires you to act and feel out of the ordinary.
Before your ritual begins, you need to create a closed space (physical and psychological) that can hold your process. The space should be free from distractions, to enable all participants to fully engage.
So, how do you start?
A start of week ritual requires you to transit from weekend to week. You need to make a “sacred” moment in between those 2 and help yourself transition from one to the other.
What might this look like?
Step 1
Do a check in
A check in round before you do anything else it is good. Just to see and hear everybody who is taking part in the ritual. The questions you ask your participants can be: how are you arriving? Or, how are you feeling at this moment? These help you to be more present in the moment.
Step 2
Take care of your physical distractions
By asking people to turn off their notifications on their phones and computers and to clear their desk space together you create a shared sense of psychological space. It creates attention and presence.
For example, I ask people to take their phone and put them behind them too. By putting it out of sight together you also create a shared sense of importance for this moment.
Step 3
Take care of your mental distractions
The last thing is to clear our minds from distraction. By giving it a shape we can actively put the weekend behind us. Let your participants sense what still occupies their minds and ask people to write or draw what came up helps to give it the attention it needs. After drawing and writing we can leave the weekend/ morning/ what was before this moment behind us by placing it outside of the room or behind us.
After this you are ready to start with the next step of the start of week ritual template: Getting present.
I’ll write about that in my next blog.