A day for office work. I tend to let paperwork -- contracts, royalty reports, bank statements, etc -- pile up on the floor next to my printer, then go through it all over the space of a day or two, filing it away neatly where it needs to go. Not the most efficient way to go about things, I know, but that's how I've been operating thus far in life and I doubt if I'm going to change any time soon. Though then again ...

... I got thinking about a couple of ways in which I've consciously changed my life in recent times. Nothing major, but noticeable nonetheless. First, a year or two ago, I switched from laced shoes to slip-ons. I got sick of having to unlace my shoes at airports and then lace them up again -- since I travel a lot, this became a major annoyance. So one day, after a lifetime of preferring laces on my shoes, I said to hell with it, and went for a slip-on option. Now I'm very happy with my laceless shoes (Skechers are my favourites) and wear them almost all the time.

In July, when I was in the Far East on tour, I had to sign lots of books. That's nothing new, but because their books are printed in the opposite direction to ours (i.e. the back cover is the front of the book, and the text runs from right to left), the cover was on my right-hand side every time I signed a book. Ever since I was 11 or 12, I've worn my watch on my right hand. I don't know why -- I used to switch it around a lot when I was young, and just decided I preferred it on my right. But when signing in Japan and Taiwan, my watch strap started catching on the covers of the books. It irritated me, so I switched my watch to my left hand for the duration of the tour -- and I've left it there ever since. Not a big thing, I know, but still, having done something a certain way for more than 20 years, it's odd to now be doing it differently!!!

We all change in many, MANY ways over the course of our lives. A lot of the times we aren't aware of the changes taking place -- they just happen unknown to us. But other times we consciously decide to implement them. Either way, I think it's the best thing about being human, this certainty that no matter what sort of a state we're in, things are going to change somewhere down the line. Some people don't like change, and I think most of us fear it from time to time. But for the most part I think it's hugely positive, something we should embrace and cherish. Because change keeps life interesting and varied. It might be as small as switching a watch from your right hand to your left ... or getting rid of laces on your shoes ... but over a life of 30, 40, 50, 60 years or more, those small shifts in your own personal universe can be as liberating and delicious as a slave shaking off their shackles and experiencing freedom for the first time.