Saturday, October 17, 2009

TED: The Power Of Time Off




NY designer Stefan Sagmeister talks about the value of taking a periodic sabbatical. After every seven years he closes his studio for an entire year and takes off in search of inspiration, a new paradigm and life lessons to bring into the next succeeding years of work.

You think: "Of course he can afford to do it. I can't." Well, standing away from your own work for an hour out of every four pays homage to the idea. In a world where everything seems to be due yesterday, rest and resting the brain still makes sense, only some people make better use of those "free" hours to think of ways to do quality work that only takes two hours instead of four. There are days I am the latter, and there are days I wish I was.

Check out the dog humor - particularly the "walking dog lamp" - and see how a seemingly innocuous image creeps into surreal, self-indulgent projects that in themselves initially don't seem to have commercial value, but are actually a thought process at work.

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