Six Ways To Play And Get More Done At Work

9737104-a-baseball-glove-in-a-baseball-diamondA group of us is currently reading the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown.  In the book he talks about the importance of play as a catalyst for creativity.  He shares countless examples of great innovators who made some of their greatest discoveries and achievements while playing.  Here’s a list of six easy ways to incorporate play into your daily routine without sacrificing productivity.

Walk- The late Steve Jobs was notorious for going on walks with others when he needed to hammer out business matters.  Who says you need to sit across from someone in order to have a meeting?  At our office, we have a hill that we love to walk up often.

Play Catch- Football, baseball, torches, you name it.  Nothing breaks the monotony like getting outside, getting fresh air and playing a little sport?  Just today we brought our baseball gloves to work and played catch while we hammered out a difficult discussion.

Learn Together- Nothing unleashes more creativity in a team than learning together.  As previously mentioned, we are going through a book on our lunch one day a week right now.  It is a fantastic idea to discuss ways to be more focussed and productive with coworkers.  Right there you also have instant accountability to bring about real improvement.

Eat Together- Who doesn’t like food–especially free food?  There is great power in sharing a meal together.  In our office, we do that once a week and it typically sparks some great discussion that wouldn’t otherwise happen if we were all siloed up in our offices.

Pranks- Yes we all have varying levels of tolerance to pranks.  As a general rule of thumb, a fun little prank here and there is a lot of fun for the puller of the prank and reminds the victim that their colleagues were thinking about them.  Please handle with care on this one but with the right amount of care, this can really put a colleague and team in a positive mindset.

Get Off Site- Find ways to bust out of the four walls once in a while and get off site with your team.  It shouldn’t come as a shock that Starbucks is a magical place for us to frequent often.

What are some ways that you incorporate play in your daily routine?  Tell us in a comment or on Facebook or Twitter.

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