Adult Recess: Building in Playful Breaks
and Creative Goofiness in Your Workday

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #513: "Adult Recess: Building in Playful Breaks and Creative Goofiness in Your Workday"

When I picture my best work day, there is a specific vision that flashes through my mind.

Working hard on something I love while singing, dancing, smiling or some combination of all those.

We all need to smile more.

We all need to play more.

Let's figure out how to make that happen.

This is the 5am Miracle, episode number 513. 5am Miracle - Building in playful breaks and creative goofiness in your work day Good morning and welcome to the 5am Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

In the episode this week, I'll break down what I mean by "adult recess", why you should adopt your own version of this awesome productivity strategy and the story behind when I first discovered that your office could look like a playground.

Let's get to it.

When I began to do the research for the topic for the episode this week, I went through my usual process of making show notes and specifically finding an image that I could use on my website.

And for all of my website graphics, I use a service called Unsplash because it provides royalty free images that I can use in lots of places.

Now as an example, you can go to jeffsanders.com/513 for the show notes for the episode this week.

You'll see the picture I chose right up top, but you're going to notice right away that I did not pick an image from Unsplash this week.

Instead, I took a selfie in my podcast studio holding a large glass vase full of bouncy balls.

And if you look closely, you can see a toy fire truck on top of my bookshelf.

Yes, a toy fire truck in my office.

It's there all the time because that's how I roll and I'm almost 40 years old.

Now, why did I choose a selfie instead of the stock image?

Well, for the episode, I searched Unsplash for the keyword play, hoping to find something that would embody the spirit of what I'm calling adult recess.

And immediately, immediately I was so disappointed.

I only found pictures of kids. 99% of the search results were geared directly towards children and they were about kids and that kids in the photos.

And the same thing was true when I searched Google images for the word play.

Now, yes, as a parent, I spend a lot of my time playing with my two girls, but what about the adults?

Why has the word play been hijacked by five-year-olds?

You know, way back at episode number 41 of this podcast, that's within the first year of launching the show, I released an episode called the work hard, play hard formula.

Get more done and have more fun.

So yes, this has been a theme of mine for literally 10 years.

And my philosophy around this, the one that I've been espousing for quite a while, whether it's conscious or subconscious, overt or discreet, this has been an important foundational element of the work that I do.

And it's not an anti-work philosophy.

On the contrary, this is a work super hard while having the time of your life mantra.

I mean, even my online course that I call the Rockin' Productivity Academy is called the Rockin' Productivity Academy for a reason.

I use the word rockin' because I literally mean rock music.

What I'm referring to is that my best work days when I'm having so much fun doing awesome work, I'm having so much fun doing awesome work.

It is a rockin' good time.

Oftentimes it involves great music or it involves dancing.

It definitely involves smiling.

And yeah, it involves me enjoying the work that I do because I want my work to be play.

I want play and work to be synonymous.

You know, my girls have gone to a Montessori school for quite a while as their upbringing, their first school experience.

And one of the core aspects of a Montessori education is that work and play are the same thing.

The kids actually learn by playing together and they play with their toys and they play with their work assignments.

If you call it work, they're playing and learning simultaneously.

We should do the same thing.

We as adults, we as people who have neglected this for probably decades should reintroduce the fact that we function well when we love what we do and play is baked into the foundation of what that is.

So the episode this week, once again, it is not an anti-work philosophy.

It is a pro-play, pro-working-in-an-awesome-way philosophy.

That's the point.

Okay, now let's get to this adult recess concept.

What does it mean to build in playful breaks and creative goofiness in your workday?

Well, before I break down exactly what I mean by that, let's talk about the problems we're trying to solve, the core foundational issues that I think that play and enjoying your work can directly address.

The first and most obvious is stress, overwhelm, burnout.

Those typical feelings we have when we're trying to do too much.

There are pressures and deadlines and consequences and real issues that cause real problems.

We feel it emotionally, physically.

It takes over our life.

Been there before.

I know what that feels like.

I feel it all the time.

We're going to directly address that one.

Number two is kind of the opposite.

It's staleness, sameness, a boringness, a monotonous experience.

We want to make sure that the work we do doesn't feel drab and old and in a rut.

That kind of feeling can also bring about this kind of ridiculous, "I don't like what I do.

I don't want to be here" kind of feeling.

Number three is just a flat-out lack of innovation, lack of creativity, lack of newness, lack of freshness.

Everything just doesn't have that spark that maybe it once had.

And number four, a desire to return to better days.

What I've seen is that our problem we have is that we view our current reality as being worse than how things used to be.

Now, if we use the example of kids playing at recess, I mean, yes, that was a great time of my life and I would love to go back to that one.

But we're trying to figure out how to bring the best parts of our past and have those in the present moment.

A desire for us to return to something that is fresh and new today, to find the joy in where we are now and don't experience this problem of always looking back and assuming that things used to be better and then our future is definitely going to be worse.

That lack of hope that you may be feeling, that's a problem and we can address that.

All right, now let's go back to that story that I promised you at the top of the show, the one where I said that I discovered that work could be play, that your office could be a playground.

Back in the eighth grade, I watched a video on a company called IDEO.

That's I-D-E-O.

It is a well-known global design and innovation company and they specialize in design and innovation.

But specifically, IDEO specializes in doing weird things, creative things, out-of-the-box kind of thinking.

It is the kind of company that embodies creativity and innovation at the core of why they exist.

The video that I saw when I was in eighth grade was the first time I'd ever seen anything non-traditional in that working sense.

The cubicles that these employees had were not actually cubicles at all.

What they were were just spaces where they were allowed to do whatever they wanted.

There were virtually no rules about office decoration.

In fact, it was almost expected and required to go out-of-the-box and just be weird.

One guy had a bicycle that was hung above his office space with a pulley system just because he could bring his bike to work and then hoist it up onto the ceiling just for fun.

Another guy had a hammock under his desk, which I know is a little more common these days, but my eighth grade mind was blown away by this.

I was 14 years old and could not believe you could have a job where you could just be weird, a job where you could do whatever you wanted and make your workspace whatever you wanted it to be.

I was really surprised by that as a young teenager seeing that, "Wait a minute.

Work doesn't have to be what I think work is.

It can be something so much more.

It can be a creative expression of whatever I think is going to be best for the kinds of things that I do."

Let's go back to that example before where I said that the image on the episode this week is of me holding bouncy balls and there's a toy fire truck in my office.

Why?

It's a great question.

The simple answer is goofiness is awesome.

That's it.

I appreciate and value weird and fun and weird.

That's it.

I appreciate weirdness.

I think that weirdness has a ton of value.

It's the kind of thing that can lead to, yes, more creativity, yes, more fun, but also an expression of who I am as a person.

If I'm going to work in this office space every day, I want it to express my best personality traits.

I want it to bring about the best of who I am so, of course, I can deliver that to you here on the podcast, but also so I can just bring my best self to the work I do each and every day no matter what that work happens to be.

When I was in eighth grade and I saw that work could be different, it put a permanent marker in my brain to say, "I'm going to do something like that."

I didn't know it for a long time what that would look like, but I do today.

When I walk into my podcast studio in my home office, I can see that video from eighth grade.

I can see IDEO's influence on my office space, the physical space I'm in because I wanted that to exist on some level because I want this space to be fun.

I want my office to be a playground.

Now that I've laid that foundation, what is adult recess?

I have defined it on my own.

This isn't a completely made up definition, but it's one that I think works pretty well for this conversation.

Adult recess, from my perspective, is an intentional break from work tasks and projects with a distinct focus on shifting to a new free-flowing state of emotion and physicality.

It's a really fancy way of saying you get to go play in a playground somewhere, right?

An intentional break from work with a focus on going somewhere with a free-flowing state of emotion.

When I think about children on a playground, they're just expressing themselves.

They're just having fun.

There are, in most cases, fewer rules in a classroom, so they get to run, they get to scream, they get to go play on the swing set, they get to go interact with their friends.

It's a state of freedom.

Freedom is at the core of what this means.

An adult recess is just the adult version of what it means to have a little more free-flowing emotions and physicality.

To go move your body, smile, do something that allows you to take a distinct break from the work that you're doing in order to shift the gears, to shift the focus.

One of the real goals of a recess is the intentional break.

It says that I was doing this kind of task, and now I'm not.

Whatever I did before, I am distinctly and intentionally not going to do that, and in fact, going to go do something that's quite the opposite, especially if you are an office worker, if you're on the computer all day, if you're doing that kind of hard thinking.

You're going to need this time, desperately need this time to be able to break out of that shell, to go do something that's going to bring about your best emotions and expressions and creative energy for the next work session you're going to have afterwards.

Because the goal of this kind of recess time is a break between modes of work.

Now, yes, you could kind of do this before you get to the office, like I would tend to do with a morning routine, for example, or you could do this after your workday is over where you go to the gym, let's say, after work and you express yourself physically by working out.

Those are important.

That's a really important part of this.

But I think the better conversation is to ask the question, "How do you bake this in into the workday?"

Kids go to recess between classes.

It's in the middle of their day they get the chance to express this and then they go back to class afterwards.

So it's part of the day.

It's not a separate piece and that's an important thing to remember here.

So now let's just be a little more explicit about why adult recess is so awesome.

I think I've made it pretty clear, but let's just be even more clear.

Number one, recess as a kid was always awesome.

I always loved the chance to get outside and play.

That was always true as a kid and it's still true today.

Number two, the opportunity to shift away from the same thing you always do and do something different is an awesome thing.

It's a healthy practice.

It's a great strategy.

It's a business strategy.

It works for you in so many ways.

Number three, you can shed stress, anxiety, negative emotions, rise the chance to vent a little bit, whether it involves yoga, meditation, going for a run, going for a walk, all these things that allow us to kind of just shed that excess stress and anxiety.

Number four, you can tap into more energy, enthusiasm, just a new positive pivot in your day, the chance for you to kind of bring about some healthy, positive emotions.

Number five, of course, you're going to unleash more creativity and innovation.

That's really one of the best parts about this is your brain gets moving.

Your brain responds so positively to that physicality and that shift in the tasks you're doing.

Number six, you can encourage more physical fitness, breathing fresh air, all the benefits that come from exercise or just getting out of your chair and moving your body.

And of course, number seven, to connect with others, whether it be coworkers, people in your neighborhood, whatever the case is, you get the chance to actually be out there, be a little more social in case the work you were doing was a little more not social, kind of like what I do working from home by myself.

The chance to go see other people is a very healthy thing.

So what are some examples?

Let's break this down.

What does it look like to actually have an adult recess session in the middle of your day?

The first example is to go to a playground, in quotes.

And by playground, I mean the adult version of what that is.

Now, if you want to go to an actual playground, that's also an option, but I'm talking about more of what does that mean for you today?

And from my perspective, my playground, it's anywhere outside.

Could be going to a park, city streets, in my neighborhood, anywhere where I get to move my body is a playground.

The best example for me is going to a park and going on a trail, whether it's hiking, trail running, or anything that allows me to be in nature, that's my ideal playground.

I do like city streets.

I do like to mix things up in that way, but my best self comes out in nature.

My best self comes out when I get to breathe fresh air, see the squirrels, hear the birds, just be in the midst of trees and dirt.

And if I can get that in the middle of a work day, it's such a refreshing experience.

So if you can go to a playground, go physically go to maybe a gym, a soccer field, go walk on the beach, wherever is nearby that allows you to get to experience mother nature outdoors and something you could call a playground, a place where you could be a little more expressive, get some of that fresh air and experience that break you desperately need in your work day.

Years ago, when I lived in Boston and worked at a bank all day, which is a weird career shift for me, but I worked at a bank and I had an hour long lunch break.

And one of the things that I would do is eat my lunch really fast so that I could go to a park nearby and go walk around because I was in an office wearing a suit and I just needed the chance to be outdoors.

And so I would intentionally either eat my lunch quickly and go to the park or grab my lunch to go and eat it while I was in the park, going for a walk.

And it was a wonderful break in my day.

Even if I loved the work that I was doing, which I honestly did not, but even if I did in theory, the break to go do something different was still helpful.

And so whether you love your job or that you think your job is a terrible one, the break is valuable.

So going to a playground, that's going to be your first best example.

The second is to build your own playground.

Now, as the example was from earlier that my home office, my podcast studio, it's a playground itself.

This is a fun place to be, right?

I have literal toys here, literal bouncy balls and fire trucks, but I've also filled this space with color.

I have a lava lamp right next to my computer monitor.

I bought this lava lamp a few years ago because I realized that I was desperately needing some life and some color.

I needed to fill this space with something that was expressive and fun.

Like a lava lamp is a silly thing.

No one needs a lava lamp.

I didn't buy it because I needed it.

I bought it because I love it because it brings about something in me that says, yeah, this is a cool place to be.

Even if it is really dated from decades ago, it still sets the tone for the kind of space that I want this to be.

And of course, lighting is a really big deal.

If you have the option to bring about more light, more color, more expressiveness in that way, your mood will be enhanced right away.

Dark spaces bring about dark emotions.

Light spaces bring about light emotions.

It's just kind of how we respond to our environment.

There's a wonderful YouTuber I've followed for a long time now named Tom Buck, and he makes YouTube videos mostly about how to make online videos and home studios and podcasts.

And one thing that Tom Buck is an absolute expert in is color.

I've never seen someone's home office be more beautiful, more expressive, more beautiful than what Tom Buck has done.

I'll have a link in the show notes for his YouTube channel.

If you want an example of how to build a phenomenal like just home space to be in, it's very techie, yes, but it's just so beautiful.

And if you need somewhere to go that just brings about a lighter mood, that's how you do it.

Now, yes, there are examples of mine, jeffsanders.com/podcaststudio.

We'll show you an example of the studio that I'm working in now, and the picture is very recent, so it's a pretty good example of where I am today.

And I just, I love this space.

And if you can have a place to go to work where you love that space physically, you're going to do better work.

You're going to feel better and that adult recess components will actually be baked into the work itself.

The rock and productivity elements will be baked in and to a certain degree, you need the actual physical break from the work less because the work itself brings about the energy and enthusiasm.

You get that sense of this is all play.

All of this is playing and that's what produces better end results.

When you take yourself too seriously, you're going to get the output that that produces.

And I'll use this podcast is a great example.

If I take myself too seriously on this show, if I try too hard to record something too perfectly, write a script that's too good, I really up the ante.

It gets worse.

My quality goes down, not up.

The best things I've ever made are going to happen when I feel this flexibility and freedom to just be goofy, make mistakes, have some fun, see what happens.

We'll cut the mistakes later and bring about the best stuff, you know, when we're done.

But the playground is the work.

It's the space to be messy and have some fun.

And as a guy who loves things to be clean and organized and specifically laid out, it's actually kind of counter to that methodology, right?

As someone who's a little OCD on things being in order, it seems bizarre that I would want to have quote unquote messy environments.

But it's not messy in the disorganization sense.

It's messy in the emotional sense.

I'm allowing myself the flexibility to move and flow and feel something and try something and fail at something and try again and fail again and just continue that brainstorming mentality to bring about more creative energy and more, yeah, just more energy in general that brings about my best self.

Now, of course, beyond your own office, if you don't work from home and you're in a typical office, yes, you may have to ask your boss about the different options you have to bring about a better space, but you could always redesign your home.

Wherever you live could also be an inspirational space.

So if your office is not something you can control that directly, at the very least, control the space that you do have control over and add a little more life into that to let it be an awesome place to go when you're not working.

The goal here is just to bring about your best self in all of these spaces you spend so much time in.

And the more of that you're able to do, the more of that adult recess mentality plays into your whole life.

And then work and play are really the same thing.

Now, a third and great way to bring about an adult recess experience into your workday is to take more intentional breaks from your work and do specific things.

As an example, you could take a break from work and listen to awesome music and literally sing and dance during that break.

Of course, you could go exercise or take a walk.

You could call a friend or someone else you love to be able to have a social engagement.

What I have done for a long time is in my work breaks is while I'm eating lunch is I'll watch standup comedy.

And I do so because first of all, I love standup comedy.

That's amazing.

But also I just need to laugh.

I need to incorporate some kind of humor in my day to once again, break me out of that serious mentality that I do tend to lean towards when I'm doing hard work and it's refreshing to bring about something that's intentionally weird and goofy and fun.

And standup comedy absolutely works.

Another thing you could do is an idea that I have referred to on this podcast a few times in the past, which is a concept that I call one minute workouts.

And what that means is you literally do a one minute workout once an hour with the goal of building in physicality and exercise into your day to get your blood flowing, get out of your chair, get moving, but only do so for one minute.

So that could be one minute of pushups, one minute of crunches, one minute of lunges, one minute of jumping jacks, running in place, just pick an activity, do it for one minute and then get back to work.

You'll be really surprised how much better you feel with a single minute of activity.

It's actually pretty hard to do if you don't work out that often.

And so when you try this, it's going to be a really inspiring one minute of every hour.

And this could be a great break from your work.

So those are basically the core concepts here to bring about adult recess into your day, whether you go to a playground itself, you build a playground wherever you work and live, or you take very intentional breaks to do specific activities to bring about your best self and once again, more energy, more enthusiasm, more creativity.

The goal behind all of this, the whole point of adult recess is to redefine your average day.

I want you to think about adult recess as your new normal, right?

We're going to take the way we've been operating and we're going to up the ante.

We're going to bring about play and fun and goofiness and bake it into how we operate.

Doing something different on that level can change your life.

When you let your younger, more playful self win as often as possible.

Imagine what that does for you, right?

Your playful self wins.

It brings about a better, younger, more energetic, more insightful version of you.

You make work a game to a certain degree.

You know, for a long time I had this mentality that I still do to a certain degree, which is the work hard, play hard mentality.

Now that's a great one.

It's very effective and I'm still a big fan of it, right?

Work hard, you get things done.

Play hard, you're enjoying yourself to the nth degree, so it's an intentional break from the work.

And so there's that yin and yang experience.

One is really hard, the other is really fun.

When you get to have both, your life as a whole is great.

But what if they were the same thing?

What if working hard and playing hard didn't look that much different?

All of a sudden, the work that you're doing is not work.

And the play that you're doing is not just some goofy side activity, it has a purpose.

Like all of a sudden, your life looks different.

This is the goal.

Redefine your average day and see what it can do for you.

I'd be very curious to hear some ideas here.

If you have a great example of a way that you've incorporated adult recess into your day, email me, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

I would love to hear how you have incorporated any of these strategies or others on your own to bring about your best self.

To use those innovative ideas from a company like IDEO to redefine a physical workspace or the time of day you work or the location you work.

You can work outside on a laptop in your backyard.

I mean, I installed Wi-Fi in my backyard recently.

I can work outside if I want to.

I don't like doing it, but I could.

And so because of that, work and play come together.

And isn't that grand?

And for the action step this week, be intentional about play.

Plan something now you can incorporate into every workday.

Keep it simple, keep it light, keep it fun.

Just bring about a smile on your face and launch into your next project with a level of enthusiasm you normally would deserve for something ridiculously awesome.

Once again, work and play could be the same thing.

Jeffsanders.com/513 is the place to go with episode notes.

And of course, subscribe to or follow this podcast in any great podcasting app you have right now.

And that's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and the fun begins bright and early.