Want a work-life hack that's so obvious it's easy to overlook?

Break away from your digital environment to refresh your creativity outdoors

Aug 18, 2022

I’ll make a wager: most hours and most minutes of your life are disrupted by beeps, pop-ups, prompts, and pushes from your phone or computer.

If you lead people it can feel like the most important work is the meeting, the constant communication. Not only being present but on top of it all. Your days might be regulated by push notifications.

You’re reactive.

So, how do you get proactive? More than that, how do you revitalize your creativity and strategic thinking (without having to take 2 weeks off like I just did—which was wonderful, btw)?

The more I lead a team and the more responsibility and creative challenges I confront in work, life and parenting, the more I realize I need to step away from the clamour of digital notifications, leave my desk and find the deep time to be quiet so that I can be creative, strategic, focused and just think.

What we’ll find when we venture outside

What do you think we'll discover when we do it?

Perhaps something like what I discovered on the beaches and the cornfields of my life.
While I've been away from my desk the last few weeks, I rediscovered that with the rush of wind comes a rush of ideas for future projects.

But also, remembrances: ideas to resurrect, things put down or forgotten that, once cleaned by the wind and the outdoor air, I can pick up again.

My heart became a kite and flew on the wind, my world immediately became wider and more enriched.

This is what's available for us out there away from the noise, away from the distractions. Refreshing space we need to conserve and to protect.

Proactively refresh your leadership thinking and creativity

If you’re a breathing human:

You need the real world.
Nature is calling.
And you're mostly likely missing the forest for the pixels.

It's so obvious, but it needs to be said out loud.

And I needed to say it out loud for myself (which I did in this short podcast episode that I recorded on the edge of a cornfield).1

Listen to "Go outside, I dare you."

If you don’t have the luxury of taking continuous days off any time soon to record podcasts on the edge of cornfields or to stand in the wind on a picturesque beach, I have some good news for you: the outdoors didn't go anywhere, they're just sitting there, waiting for you. And you can enter them today while at work.

The main objections to the obvious

What are yours? I have my go-to excuses:

The pandemic,
young kids,
a busy job working alongside colleagues who are all remote and in different timezones with meetings all the time,
a writing life that requires me to sit down and pencil it out or to type, type, type.

Yeah yeah yeah.

No one told you (or me) that we’re not allowed to walk away from our desks. Don’t be a self-inflicted Zoom slave.2

Start with a commitment (to yourself)

Part of the reason for this post is to hold myself accountable. To overtly note the obvious and to surface the lived experience I just had on my vacay. (If he brings up his vacation one more time I’m going to report him).3

I'm making a commitment. Perhaps a wager with myself that it’s possible to bring some of this outdoor refreshment into my work life.

Here’s the life-hack: Break from your default work style (hunkered down on devices and living in your email) to literally just step outside.4 And don't wait until you finally have vacation to do so.

Do you want to wager with me? Can we dare each other to go outside more and unleash ourselves from digital notifications?

If you need accountability, leave a comment and I’ll hold you to it.