Get Inspired! Plan Your Summer Think Week

Is your employee engagement and recognition strategy stale? Are you and your colleagues burnt out? Take a Think Week!
First popularized by Bill Gates, a Think Week is time set aside for personal and professional development.
Gates secluded himself twice a year for a week, “taking a helicopter or seaplane to the two-story clapboard cottage on a quiet waterfront” where he barred most outside visitors, disconnected from the Internet and spent up to 18 hours a day reading and pondering the future of technology, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some of Gate’s most innovative ideas came to him during his Think Week.
But you don’t need a personal helicopter ride to a private cabin or even seven full days to experience a successful Think Week! Daily reading time and journaling on a family vacation or a new lunch-hour habit of walking while listening to podcasts will expose you to new ideas and inspire your own innovation.
You’ll return to work and “real life” with a different perspective, fresh ideas and boosted enthusiasm. Read on for tips on how to plan your Think Week, plus a list of suggested Think Week reading and listening material.

The Burnout Cure: Planning Your Think Week

Skillshare’s Michael Karnjanaprakorn is another proponent of the Think Week. Like Gates, he gets out of the office and breaks from his normal routine twice a year.
“By actively disconnecting and looking at everything from 50,000 feet, I am able to effectively reflect, reset and clearly rethink my goals and aspirations,” Karnjanaprakorn writes in a Fast Company article.
He has three general Think Week rules:
1. Do nothing work-related.
Clear your head of the emails and worries. Take a digital detox. By shutting out everyday work responsibilities, you “get into a different mindset that makes way for new creative ideas.”
2. Focus on personal development.
For clearer decisions, Karnjanaprakorn makes a “life to-do list” and gives himself time for research and deep thinking.
3. Seek out a change of scenery.
Spending time in a new environment sparks creativity. If you’re not doing your Think Week on vacation, find a new neighborhood or park, or rent a desk at a local co-working space.
After your Think Week is over, keep the ball rolling! Develop a morning routine for reflection, block out time for uninterrupted work and regularly check in to see if you’re meeting your goals.

Think Week Resources on Employee Engagement and Recognition

Now’s the time to finally read those interesting articles you bookmarked months ago but were too distracted to actually read, or to listen to that podcast your mentor is always recommending.
Here are a few resources and suggestions for an HR-focused Think Week:
1. Pick some books from our blog post from last year, “9 Great Beach Reads on Building Employee Happiness.”
2. Explore new or unconventional methods of employee engagement, like Second City improv classes. Intrigued? Start with the Wall Street Journal’s “The New Face of Second City” and this New York Post article on the Second City corporate training that teaches workplace skills.
3. The McKinsey Podcast features conversations with experts on the workplace issues that matter most in business and management. Recent podcasts have included “Going from fragile to agile” and “The essentials of innovation.”
4. Harvard Business Review bundles its best articles and research into convenient collections. HBR Collections cover topics from authentic leadership to people management. (Through July 15, HBR is offering a 25 percent discount with the promo code SUMMER25 on purchases of $40 or more.)
5. Our blog post “Excellent TED Talks on Building Workplace Gratitude” is a great resource for inspiring ideas on the science of gratitude, happiness, communication, stress and meaningful work.
6. Is your workplace ready for the youngest people now entering the workplace? Read up on Generation Z, the generation to follow Millennials. Here are two articles to get you started:

• “A Workplace for Generation Z” (Boston Globe)
• “Why Today’s Teens Are More Entrepreneurial Than Their Parents” (HBR)

7. Short on reading time? Podcasts allow you to learn new ideas while you walk, cook, drive, exercise or do chores. The Live Happy Now podcast, curated by the editors of Live Happy magazine, explores the science and experience of living a happier and more meaningful life through interviews with positive psychology and well-being thought leaders.
8. Polling giant Gallup has a whole section on its website dedicated to employee engagement research. Gallup updates the section regularly and releases its quarterly engagement results here. Check in to take the pulse of U.S. worker engagement and read the latest analyses of poll results.
9. Listen to Matt Cutt’s TED Talk “Try Something New for 30 Days” — a short, lighthearted talk on what really sparks personal change and how to set and achieve goals.
10. Finally, the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley is a wealth of expert information on workplace happiness, gratitude, mindfulness, productivity and generosity.

Looking for more Think Week resources?

Download our free guide to “The Top 20 Employee Engagement Blogs You Should Be Reading.” Subscribe, follow and connect with engagement experts!

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