THE Pottering POWER OF

From rearranging the cupboards to tinkering in the garden, a new book reveals the surprising benefits of pottering on our mood and mind

Whether you’re working your way through odd little jobs in the house or just doing a bit of this and that, there’s nothing quite like pottering. A peculiarly British pastime, it’s something many of us may have been doing even more of in recent months as we’ve found ourselves with more free time at home.

While pottering by its very nature is something we tend not to give much thought to, it could actually do us more good than we realise, reducing stress and even boosting happiness, as revealed in the book, Pottering: A Cure for Modern Life.

The book’s author Anna McGovern (right) first discovered the joy of pottering a few years ago when caring for her ageing father, looking after three young children and juggling a full-time job. She felt burnt out and decided to use her annual leave to take one day off work a week, then started filling these free days with ‘mindless’ pottering.

“I would do a bit of cooking, sewing, wander to the shops or do things such as filling up the bird feeder. Really, though, it’s hard to pin down exactly what I did

‘Pottering is not a lifestyle concept and it doesn’t require practice or equipment’

and that’s the point,” says Anna. “I found pottering was unlike anything else because it wasn’t something you could be good at or judged for, I could just lose myself in these little tasks and yet as they were still things that needed to be done, they gave me a satisfaction and sense of control over my life.”

After just a few weeks of pottering, Anna felt remarkably different. “I was so much more relaxed. I felt I’d had this physical and mental MOT in which I’d had time to do little things like have my hair cut and sort the house out. That made me feel restful and ready to try new things,” she says.

Realising the gift it had given her, Anna soon became a pottering evangelist, sharing her thoughts in her new book.

As she points out, the real beauty of pottering is that it’s available to everyone. “You don’t have to put much effort in, go very far or even do it with others. It’s not a lifestyle concept and doesn’t require practice or equipment,” she says. What’s more, everyone potters in their own way. For example, while Anna loves to potter by leisurely hanging out the laundry and doing the dishes, she doesn’t enjoy vacuuming so doesn’t class that as pottering and instead gets it done as quickly as possible.

In this sense, the difference between pottering and ‘jobs around the house’ is that it’s about the pace at which you do these tasks and that these are jobs you get some pleasure from.

It’s also different, Anna says, from sitting in front of a boxset or reading. While it should be relaxing, pottering requires constant movement as it implies meandering from one activity to the next. For this reason, pottering can have great physical benefits as experts say just ten minutes of pottering a week in middle age, perhaps round the garden or down to the shops, constitutes moderate exercise that could lengthen your life.

More than the physical gains, though, the true value of pottering is in how it affects our minds, giving us a mental break from other worries. “Pottering won’t solve your problems, but it might give you a temporary rest, so that you can gather your resources and strength enough to tackle the things that matter,” says Anna.

It’s the reason why occupying ourselves with little potters can often be one of the most powerful activities we can do in the gravest of circumstances, such as at a hospital bedside, after a break-up or in the middle of a global pandemic. “With pottering you never have to be perfect. There are no targets and you don’t have to achieve anything,” she says. Nevertheless, for those who might usually consider pottering a waste of a day, doing these simple little tasks can achieve a surprising amount as well as giving us the satisfaction of knowing we’ve got one over on that messy sock drawer or have tackled a cobweb we’ve been meaning to get rid of for ages.

“By taking a chance to potter, which is entirely optional, we regain the tiniest bit of control. It’s as if we’re able to trick ourselves for a moment that we have so much time we can afford to do something trivial. It’s a small act of rebellion,” says Anna. “And I’d love more of us to take advantage of it.”

■ Pottering: A Cure for Modern Life by Anna McGovern is out now, rrp £12.99