Explore Every Day is a new title from Lonely Planet. Subtitled “365 daily prompts to refresh your life”, it includes a number of activities designed to kickstart your creativity by making the most of everyday life and experiences. Or, as it states in the introduction, it is a book to be treated as “a stand against the forces that hold us back from exploring our creativity, our adventurousness and our communities”.
Expanding Your Horizons
Some of the activities in this book can be done at home; others require you to leave the house. Most can be done on your own; some require other people. And some will take you out of your comfort zone: intermediate steps may be offered.
The chances are that some of the prompts will be things that you are already doing. And there may be some actions that you choose not to take. I’m not sure that I will be following the suggestion to ride a horse or to “find a slide and slide down it” (although that does of course pose the question, “why not?”). On the other hand, there are lots of practical suggestions for anyone who wants to expand their horizons, ranging from attending free lectures to trying new foods.
Interactive Prompts
The book is interactive, with spaces to write about your experiences. Some of the prompts require you to draw a map or a picture, stimulating creativity by engaging the right side of the brain. This is at the core of the book’s philosophy, the idea that creative play adds to every area of your life.
Many of the activities are free or inexpensive, and most are not time-consuming. They can be squeezed into your daily routine: as the introduction says, “adding breaks to your daily life will help you become more productive”.
Explore Every Day is not a self-help manual, but an inspiration to try new things. In some ways it is a lighter version of Lonely Planet’s Everyday Adventures, which I reviewed earlier this year. It would be an ideal Christmas stocking filler. Or a way to spark off those New Year’s resolutions.
Explore Every Day, Lonely Planet, 2019, £9.99, 9781788686358
