Most Sundays slip past us. We mean to have a slow morning. We end up scrolling for two hours, then it is one in the afternoon, then we feel slightly low, then the week starts.

These ten small rituals are an antidote. They are designed to be done in a normal house, on a normal Sunday, without any equipment, without anyone watching, without anyone needing to know. You do not have to do all of them. You do not have to do them in order. Pick three. Try them this Sunday.

1. Make breakfast that takes an hour

Not five minutes with a phone propped against the milk carton. An hour. Eggs. Toast that you actually butter properly. A pot of tea. Standing at the bench while you wait for things to be ready. The slowness IS the breakfast.

2. Open the window before the news

Before you check your phone. Before you check the headlines. Before anyone tells you anything. Open the window. Listen for a minute. Notice what kind of day it is going to be from the air, not the app.

3. Read three pages, not three feeds

The lowest possible reading goal. Three pages of an actual book. It will take seven minutes. Most of us cannot remember the last time we read three uninterrupted pages of anything.

4. Bake something with your hands

Even if it is from a packet mix. The act of measuring, stirring, waiting for the oven. Bread is the gold standard but a tray of muffins counts. The kitchen smelling of something at eleven on a Sunday morning is one of the great quiet pleasures of being alive.

5. Write one postcard

You do not have to know what to say. The post office sells postcards. Buy one. Write four sentences. Address it. Post it on Monday. Somebody you love will get something nice in the post this week because of you.

6. Walk somewhere you usually drive

The shops. The cafe. The park. The bottle shop. The route on foot is completely different from the route in the car. You will see things you never noticed. You will arrive in a slightly different mood.

7. Sit on the floor with the dog

If you have a dog. If you do not, borrow one for an afternoon. Sit on the floor with them. Do not look at your phone. Just sit. The dog will be delighted. So will you, an hour later, when you have remembered that you are a mammal.

8. Phone in the kitchen all morning

The Kitchen Phone Challenge in compact form. Plug your phone in in the kitchen at 8am Sunday. Do not pick it up until lunchtime. Notice how many times you reach for the spot in your pocket where it usually lives.

9. Cook for someone, not for content

A roast. A pasta. A pavlova. Cook one thing that takes longer than it should and feed it to someone. Do not photograph it. Do not post it. The meal exists between you and them, full stop.

10. Get into bed when the sun goes

Australian winter Sundays. The sun is gone by six. Get into bed by seven. Read. Sleep early. Wake up at six on Monday feeling like a different person. This is the most underrated productivity hack in the world and it does not require any optimisation, any apps, any subscriptions. Just an early bedtime.

A note at the end

Sundays are weather. You cannot force a slow Sunday by trying hard. But you can put the small rituals in place and let the slowness arrive on its own.