Tomorrow will officially start the 3rd Annual Design Extension’s WORKCATION.
What’s a workcation you ask? It’s like a vacation with your family, plus the people that you work with, plus a lot of crazy, plus a little work.
Some companies do extended retreats and conferences to reboot and recharge; we do workcation.
A few years ago I realized that we needed a mid-year time to focus on internal strategy, reflect on the year so far, reconnect and recharge. We have a distributed team, which means we don’t have a central office and don’t see each other every day. As a result, it can be good to have a chance to get together for some bonding — as a result, lots of creative ideas are often born.
I thought about taking the team on a trip or a retreat, but we all have a lot of young children (18 to be exact — mostly under 10) and we don’t like to be away from home for long. Then I thought, why don’t we ALL go? So “workcation” was born.
The company rents a large beach house and a total of 12 adults and 18 children (for now) descend on Anna Maria Island, Florida. Each family takes a night to prepare a large meal, and we have the last night catered. This year, we’re upping the ante a bit and renting two frozen drink machines (one for the kids and one for the mommas and the papas).
If you’re a client (or prospective client), you can expect we’ll be a bit slower this week responding to requests and won’t be scheduling any meetings (since we’re out of town).
Here’s why this is valuable to you…
People who take time to recharge, refocus, and review are more successful in the long run. We’ve been in business for 16 years this month. (In internet years, that’s like 105.) We take one week in the middle of the year to get ready to enter the back half of the year with a full charge.
As a result, we produce better work, we’re more fun to work with, and our company bond is better than ever.
What does your company do to recharge? We’d love to hear some new ideas.
