It can be challenging to spend up to two hours doing something new or different. This is especially true if you’ve got deadlines looming. At UAF eCampus, the designers meet about every six weeks to do something different. On Tuesday of last week we got creative with paper, ribbon and stamps (plus a few stickers). That’s actually a bit tame. This group has had knot tying and fire making challenges, telling an impromptu story, making books from scratch, origami folding and more.
“There is good evidence that if you allow employees to engage in something they want to do, (which) is playful, there are better outcomes in terms of productivity and motivation.’
– Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play
as quoted on the Health @ Work link by Laurie Tarkan linked below
What did we need for this particular challenge? An invitation (via Google calendar) a few weeks in advance. Plus:
- Paper, scissors, glue stick, ribbon, stamps, ink
- A few samples
- Someone to set up and one or two people designated to clean up*
*Depending upon your choice of Tech free challenge, you might not need anyone to clean up.
Additional things you might do for this type of team challenge: clean up the shared kitchen (we did), add a sitting area/lounge to some place in your office just using donations from the staff (we did).
Upcoming ideas: there is a great brainstormed list – I might post later and tell you what happens.
Here are a just a few images from the finished projects (since people were coming and going, I only snapped a few shots). I also used a product called MPEG Streamclip to grab two images (the embossed leaves and the colorful tags with blue ribbons) from a video.
I made an animated gif to add to this post, but could not handle the speed at which it displayed… so I nixed it. No sense trying to get folk ill.
A few articles that are similar:
- To Stay on Schedule, Take a Break – NY Times 2012
- Work hard, play harder: Fun at work boosts creativity, productivity – Fox News 2012
- Infusionsoft encourages employees to take creative breaks – Arizona Business & Money 2010
More images: A ‘Just Because’ card created by Tina, Embossed Leaves – part of a project created by Christen, more tags created by Tina
