you.thenticity Newsletter

Issue No.6?On the role of play at work, but not only

??Reflection

Josef Pieper writes in his book Leisure: The Basis of Culture: “We mistake leisure for idleness, and work for creativity and productivity. Of course, work may be productive and creative. But only when informed by leisure. Leisure is not the cessation of work, but work of another kind, work restored to its human meaning, as a celebration and a festival.”?

As a person recovering from workaholic tendencies, my first instinct reading this was to subconsciously be a bit judgemental about it. And it was not the only time I was surprised myself doing this - I was having a judgemental moment also last week during a discussion about people who take many smoking breaks at work. So this realization made me want to let go of bias and dig deeper into the topic. It made me contemplate on how we think about work and brought to the surface the shame and guilt we, as a society, are associating with breaks and entertainment - because we tend to perceive activities that do not have a measurable output in a negative light.

But, actually, these leisure activities have so many positive outcomes. Science has the last word and it showed that:

?allowing time away from our desks boosts creativity and the spirit of innovation.

?making time for play creates contexts for us to imagine, experiment, and restore focus and energy.

?creative hobbies enhance performance and problem-solving abilities and make us more likely to come up with creative solutions.

Are you convinced to invite more leisure activities into your life? If not, I hope the next resources will have you sold ??

???Book of the week

McKeown shows us how to achieve the pursuit of less - challenging the core assumption of ‘I have to do everything’ & replacing it with the pursuit of ‘the right thing, in the right way, at the right time'. He talks about how play has a big role in improving personal health, relationships, and a person's & organization’s ability to innovate and grow.

??Newsroom

• Feeling like leisure is wasteful and unproductive is bad for wellbeing and may lead to less happiness and higher levels of stress and depression, new research suggests.
• Atlantic writes about how? “optimizing everything a person does toward efficiency, accelerates our tendency to engage with our hobbies in a worklike, data-driven way."
• How hobbies can improve your happiness and productivity at work. We’re losing the art of creative leisure time, but play is a critical component of success.
• The 1930s were marked by a Great Depression, the 2010s by a Great Recession, and our current decade is marked by a Great Regression. Research on Japanese society and how the return to childhood manifests in the things we consume, in how we spend our time, and even in the ways our societies are governed.
• A recent article in the Atlantic mentions, rebranding sick days as “wellness days”, which employees can take for physical or mental health.
• The power of play -? how we can make more time for play in our lives and why we should set this as a priority.

??Surprise of the week

???Tools & practices

• UNICEF’s Play & resilience toolkit discusses the importance of “playful learning” for developing one's sense of agency during early childhood, but not only. Adults as well are gaining enormous benefits from playing.
• Did you know that each of us has one or more playing personalities? Read more about the play personalities described and briefly illustrated by Dr. Brown.
• Happiness Break: Making space for you. Consider what you want to make space for in your life in this 6-minute contemplation guided by Alex Elle.
• Tired of cringe-inducing icebreakers? Here are 42 virtual icebreakers top facilitators actually use to kick off their remote workshops.

??Podcast of the week.

We all just want to have fun… but is the workplace really the right setting? In this unique episode of Transform Your Workplace, Brandon Laws gets the lowdown on the benefits of a playful workplace. His guest, Paul Lopushinsky, insists that when workplace play is implemented correctly, it can have a significant impact on productivity, morale, and the overall employee experience.

4 Takeaways:

?? A bottom-up approach is ideal when it comes to creating a playful workplace environment.?

??Play in the workplace leads to a boost in employee morale, productivity, and retention.?

??Companies should be wary of implementing “forced fun” or “mandated play.

??” A buddy system can be an effective tool in facilitating playfulness at work.

???Video Of The Week

A pioneer in research on play, Dr. Stuart Brown says humour, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults -- and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age.

??Food for thought

Being made aware of the benefits of the play it's just the first step. The next one is to start reintegrating small moments of playfulness into our lives. If you lack of ideas on how to start doing that, maybe the prompt below can help with your brainstorming:

• What do the moments of play look like for you?
• Think about 3 things you love?doing. What about them is fun, brings you joy, and makes you feel alive?
• How you can implement things from your list above into your day-to-day life?

??Let’s work together!

When you are ready, these are 3 ways I can support you:

• Join the you.thenticity community?- dedicated to people who are interested in Training, Wellbeing, Coaching, or simply interested in discovering themselves more and grow.
• Book a free 1:1 discussion with me.
• Let me take care of your Training, Wellbeing or Coaching project.

See you again next Wednesday, with another round of resources on Training, Coaching & Wellbeing.

If you’re hungry for even more content, you can follow me on?Facebook?&?Instagram.

Thank you for reading me,

Cosmina