In a recent team meeting at Echoing Green, a non-profit that promotes social entrepreneurship, my boss asked my colleagues and me to think about a social ill that we would like to see remedied, solved, or overcome. He told us to envision a world without this problem, to describe what that world might look like, and to share this with the team. I spoke about mass incarceration. One of my colleagues spoke about inequality in education, another about the oppression of women. After we had shared what the world might look like without these problems, my boss explained that seeing these ideal worlds brought about is what inspires us to work with Echoing Green.
The purpose of this exercise was simple and profound. It is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of a job (or a life, I would argue) and to forget what it is we are striving for. At Echoing Green the everyday tasks my team and I do can overshadow and draw our minds away from our passion and why it is we were drawn to the organization in the first place. Thinking about what drives us and about what we are working towards can bring us back to that emboldened and committed state-of-mind. It can keep us inspired, and it is that inspiration that keeps us productive.
Sure, it’s hard to stay in this state of inspiration, passion, empowerment. Day-to-day minutia has a way of weighing on it, but there are always ways to keep yourself engaged and thoughtful. One such way I have found helpful is defining an inspired workspace. When you’re surrounded by things that inspire you, your workspace becomes a safe place for open-mindedness and free-thinking. It is then that the monotony of everyday tasks can be overcome.
My desk at Echoing Green.
At my desk at Echoing Green I am surrounded by my favorite books (like Prudence Carter’s Keein’ It Real), pictures of my favorite places (like the South Bronx), and notes/quotations from people I admire. When my mind wanders for a minute as I read emails or when I need a quick two-minute break from staring at an excel spreadsheet, my eyes focus in on these things. I am brought back to a state of awareness, awareness of what I am working for and towards. So after our team exercise I added a new knickknack to my desk – a small poster about incarceration in the United States given to me by a close friend. Now when I need to refocus and get inspired, I just look up and read, “Incarceration Nation.”
This week think about your workspace, whether it is a workspace in an office or just your desk at home. How can you make this space yours? How can you make it a space that screams inspiration, that gives off passion, that empowers you and keeps you focused? This kind of project is not only one that will make you more productive, but it is a lot of fun, too.
John Jay Balancing Act 
0 Responses to “an inspired space”