
The Ideal Workday
Summer always encourages daydreams, so we are going to take some time to dream today.
(Okay, I daydream all year round; it’s an important part of my creative process. But for the purposes of this post, we are using the humid, warm summer days as a reason to slow down and dream).
Pretend that you have no commitments, and have a blank workday. It is a workday, not a day off. So dream in relation to the work you love to do.
With what kind of projects would you fill it?
Write a few pages on what your ideal workday would look like. Get as specific in the details, the projects, even the companies, as you wish. It can be in any format that suits you – journal entry, essay, paragraphs, lists, a calendar with hourly slots which you fill.
Add in the view from your ideal workspace, the local of the space, how you spend break time, lunch time, and whether or not there are any meetings or brainstorming sessions. Detail your ideal colleagues (be they actual colleagues, or the ones you wish you had). Add in sensory details.
Read it over. It should hold enough detail so that reading it feels like living it.
How much of this is a dream? How much overlaps with any of your life at this point? You might be pleased at the overlap; you might be dismayed at the lack of overlap. There’s no “wrong” response. There is simply your genuine response.
Put the piece of paper away, in a safe place. We will return to it in the autumn. But keep dreaming and planning and constructing your perfect workday. If you want to add notes to this document in the next few weeks, do so. But keep it safe.
More to come.