Campfire 73 (Season Finale): The Transformative Power Of Time Well Designed

Forget superfoods. It’s time for super-experiences.

Some experiences are like junk food: spending too much time indoors, alone, scrolling Facebook or watching TV, for example.

Others are like a superfood: getting offline and outside, doing things for or with others, and staying active.

​​Of course, these experiences require that we actually take time off – not easy in a culture obsessed with productivity. After all, 55% of Americans don’t use all their paid vacation time.

However, researchers at Columbia, Harvard and Georgetown universities have found that a “functional alibi” can be helpful: we’re more likely to go camping if we acknowledge it will be good for our productivity at work. Read more about this in a column our CEO James Wallman wrote for TIME magazine.

So when we design and promote our experiences, if we can convince people that they will emerge smarter, better, transformed, we have a much better chance of persuading them to book that time off and trust us with their hours – and their wallets.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is a Silicon Valley consultant and author of the bestselling book Rest. In it, he shows that if you – and your target audience! – take more time off and use it well, you’ll be better both in AND outside of work as a result.

Ahead of our summer break, join him and other experience experts to discuss how to design experiences that provoke creativity and curiosity, expand people’s minds, and make them more likely to spend their precious time and money with you.

In anticipation, think about these 3 questions:

1. What was the last “super-experience” you attended or designed?
2. How did it increase your creativity, curiosity, productivity or wellbeing?
3. How might you turn your experiences into “super-experiences” – and promote the potential health / human benefits of your next experience?

*NB: This event is for WXO Members ONLY. To attend Campfires, click here to apply to join the WXO.*