Early morning go-getters preparing a hearty breakfast and ready for banter - the theme of the fourth day of Hatch Week was mindfulness, and what a perfect way to kick it off.
At Hatch, we understand the importance of zooming out, whether it be to solve a complex coding problem, or exploring the best design decisions, it’s easy to get caught up in trivial details and lose perspective of the bigger picture.
It may be easy to apply this concept to a practical problem, but what if we tried to zoom out on our own lives? What if we really questioned ourselves, about our own existence?
As a team, we were given the task of trying to answer such questions with a fine-tuned self- assessment guide titled “8,760 Hours”. Every person was to spend a solid no-phone, no-distraction, 2 hours on this guide, spreading ourselves across the lodge to allow clear thoughts to flow.
I found the guide confronting, to say the least. It required a lot of honesty about my current situation and future goals. The team felt similar, with most of us barely scratching the surface of the guide.
But it’s not a race, it’s a way to approach life deliberately, to really bring out your values, to identify areas of life that require attention/praise. Most importantly, it demands that we take a strategic approach to where you want your future self to be.
We switched over to a discussion about practicing mindfulness, focussing on the lack of ‘moments’ society now experiences. People love to fill every second of free time in pursuit of being ‘busy’, whether with Facebook, Snapchat or LinkedIn.
It leaves no time to stop.
To soak in our surroundings –
Through practicing mindfulness, everything is done with an underlying thought and reason. Doing something with no meaning is pointless.
It’s a challenge to put down the phone – most of us look at our phones every minute out of habit.
We think shutting off the phone, just for a few hours is worth pursuing. Mindfulness translates throughout your work, social and personal life, improving yourself as a person.
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants, what are they busy about?” - Henry David Thoreau.
When was the last time you put your phone away at a gathering?
Ed took us on a spirited adventure on how to turn our case-studies of our previous work into concise, interesting narratives. The presentation followed the format of Disney movies – though slightly adapted for Hatch – that is:
As a team, we broke down a few of the previous work we;d completed into the format above, and each tried telling it to the team.
We were all surprised at how effective it was to craft what you say, and how simple it can be to turn a bland case study into a dynamic journey actually worth hearing!
It was then time for a quick dinner break, with the Hatch family gathering to create a feast:
As we mindfully headed to bed after a few laughs and late night rounds of Cranium we wondered what the last day of Hatch Week would have in store for us.
This blog is part of ‘Hatch Week’, a week where we escape from our day to day to improve as a team, individuals and as a company. Every day had a theme, and every theme a blog.
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