Taking things OOO
Creative explorations 'out of office'
Dear fellow free spirits,
I’m writing to you on a Saturday because yesterday I was OOO (out of office). If you read my last post on schedule experimentation you might remember that I’ve blocked my calendar for flexible Fridays. After what turned out to be an extremely full week I decided to save this Friday for self care.
Flexible Friday began with:
checking emails
providing my team with some design feedback
sending my clients project updates
But then I went out of office and enjoyed a day in the city visiting some of my favorite spots and taking a long ‘walk and talk’ with a friend.
OOO has been this emergent theme, as the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with not one but TWO offerings from Out of Office, a research & design lab reimagining how we might shift from being work-centered to life-centered. I have been loving everything Out of Office has been putting into the world and am so appreciative that my life as a freelancer allows me the time to participate in such creative quests.
OOO Uniform Research
Last month I joined the Out of Office Uniform research project which is a social experiment on how we might connect siloed remote workers. What would it feel like to wear a uniform to be a part of this club of connectors? To be seen in the wild fostering relationship building and furthering the idea of third places over office spaces?
What I did:
Firstly, I participated in the co-creation session to help design an ideal remote work clothing item where fashion could be a values promoter and conversation starter. Shout out to Shuya & Alice who made the most dreamy Figjam boards for our sessions! My ideal fit would be a fun ‘rest is not a chore’ coat.
Then, I toured local coffee shops and co-working spaces observing how they are set up for remote workers, but also if they’re designed for fostering connections (or not). [Btw Haus Coffee, Compton’s Coffee House, Mercury Cafe, and All Hands Club were the favs]
Finally, I met other researchers “in-uniform” to test what it would be like to meet IRL and feel a sense of belonging and community as an indepedent worker.
Where my head+heart are at:
I’m loving exploring the concept of third places and asking how might they be designed to help us build community instead of just being an environment for headphones on & heads-down work time beyond the home office.
How could we intentionally design public spaces for different types of interactions that we may need in our day to day?
How could we intentionally design these spaces to promote more serendipity in meeting others, where we have ‘coffee talk’ instead of ‘water-cooler chat’?
How might repeated visits to third places promote relationship building and a sense of belonging to community?
OOO Residency
I also joined the pilot creative residency program, created to bring a small collective together to further dive into imagining regenerative ways of working and living. This felt like it would be the perfect time and space for me to continue the personal exploration I’ve been doing around rhythms of working, designing rituals, and world building in business. If you’ve taken my Designing Your Freelance Business class, you know that I nerd out on all of these things!
What I’m doing:
So far in our program we’ve:
drafted principles
collaged on how we define success
ideated on rituals
moodboarded on what we dream our life/work to look like
started working on personal manifestos
Where my head+heart are at:
Since I’ve been pondering these elements for a long time now, my current focus is on how I can design frameworks for taking action. Perhaps by working backwards of where I want to be, what I want to create, I can build out some maps for slowly moving toward that reality. My schedule experimentation from last month was one example. Stay tuned for more.
Are you also OOO?
How about you? Are you interested in this idea of what it means to redefine how work fits into your life and not the other way around? Are you keen to explore what the future of work looks like for yourself (and others)? I’d love to connect to hear more. If you’re local we can meet at a third place! If you’re remote we can have virtual tea time.
May only the best come to you,
Sarah
P.S. I decided not to do an audio recording of this post as the previous output appeared choppy quality. But please let me know, do you like listening to your Substack articles!?
Little Library:
Who doesn’t love a little library? Here are some of the writings I’ve read recently that inspired this issue:
Great article Saraha.
Yeah audio format sounds great.