“Where are you?” a client asked Robb during a Zoom call last week.
“The Black Hills in South Dakota. We’re visiting family since we had rare open schedules between the end of the kids’ bike racing season and beginning of school.”
Throughout the year, Robb’s Zoom background changes.
He’s often in Colorado, but whether he’s in Nederland, Steamboat, Crested Butte, or Durango depends on the week.
California makes its appearances, as do the Black Hills and Minnesota.
Robb even gave a successful pitch between taking ski runs on a powder day, while sitting in the Taos Ski Valley parking lot.
While we aren’t totally digital nomads, our agency began a remote model during the pandemic that we’ve kept.
Sure, we need to be intentional about our creative concepting brainstorms and client reviews, but overall this model has continued to work well for us.
Staff have been able to move throughout the country to be closer to family.
And clients have continued to feel connected and confident in our work through regular video calls and in-person ideation sessions.
Moreover, it allows us to break up the ruts we can get in from habituation, what “Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology describes as ‘our tendency to respond less and less to things that are repeated or constant.’” (Limbong, 2024).
Researchers have found that a change in environment leads to a temporary increase in creative problem solving and creativity.
Breaking up routines and locations can get you out of a rut.
This can be anything from going for a short walk around the block to working from a coffee shop for the day to—like Robb—working from another city, state, or country for a period of time.
So before buckling down with fall planning, take advantage of August vibes.
• Have coffee with a friend on a Friday morning.
• Go for that trail run instead of your usual neighborhood loop.
• Take the afternoon off to swim.
• Go to that outdoor concert.
Who knows—you might have your best creative aha moment while sipping a cool drink by a pool, lake, or ocean.
And even if you don’t, it’s still worth it.
Signing off,
Katie
Source:
Limbong, A. (2024, June 26). Stuck in a rut? How to appreciate your life again, according to science. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/06/26/g-s1-4136/stuck-in-a-rut-how-to-appreciate-your-life-again-according-to-science