Downshifting As you move around your home and take a good hard look at its contents, it's likely that your living room will have a television set and a DVD player, and your kitchen will have a washing machine, a as tumble, drier, and a microwave oven. Your bedroom drawers be stuffed with almost three times many clothes a you need. You almost certainly own a car and may at a home romputer, holiday abroad of rubbish in your east once a year and eat out at least once a week. If you could see the volume over a year, you would be horrified Now, perhaps, more than ever before, people are what life is all about, what it is for. The ingle-minded pursuit of material success is wondering the beginning to trouble large numbers of people around their more things is eating up world. They the long-hours work culture to make more money to buy to alternative feel turning lives, leaving them precious llttle time or energy for family or leisure. Many are ways of living and downshifting is one of them According to a national consulting group, this new approach to work coincides with radical changes in the employment market, where a no longer guaranteed and lifetime employment can only be job is achieved by taking personal responsibility for your career six percent of workers in Britain took the decision to downshift last year, swapping their highly pressured, stressful positions for less demanding, less time-consuming work which they believe gives them a better balanced life. One couple who downshifted is Daniel and Liz. They used to work in central London. He was a journalist and she used to work for an international bank. They would commute every day from their large house in the suburbs, leaving their two children with a nanny. Most evenings Daniel wouldn't get home until eight or nine o'clock, and nearly twice a month he would have to fly to New York for meetings. They both earned a large amount of money but began to feel that life was passing them by Nowadays, they run a farm in the mountains of Wales ve always wanted to have a farm here," says Daniel, "and we took almost a year to make the decision to downshift. It's taken some getting used to but it's been worth it. We have to think twice now about spending money on car repairs and we no longer have any holidays. However, lthink it's made us stronger as a family, and the children are a lot happier Liz, however, is not totally convinced "I used to enjoy my job, even though it was hard work and long hours. I'm not really a country girl, but l suppose l'm gradually getting used to looking after the animals. One thing do like though is being able to see more of my children. My tip for other people wanting to do the same is not to think about it too much or you might not do it at atl.'