by Michael Holland
Investing in your own development can reap tremendous rewards. Invigorate your effectiveness by taking a personal offsite day. Set up an agenda for the day that includes an inventory of what has been working, revisiting your goals, assessing the perception of stakeholders of your team’s work, dreaming about what could be accomplished and making executable action plans.
Determine a location where you can truly relax, reflect and plan. Consider these ideas.
- Grab a hotel room about an hour’s drive away, providing just enough distance to feel as if you have traveled to the offsite and giving you the buffer from easy access to your office.
- Pick a state park, pack a lunch and find a picnic table to spread out on.
- Rent a boat and float in the middle of the lake for 4 hours.
- Take a train ride to a city 3 hours away and stay on the train for the round trip.
- Do you prefer to have people and noise around? How about driving to a college campus and using the school’s student union, café or library.
- Prefer to add in some food? Panera Bread probably has a location in every major city. Take a 60 minute drive and park yourself at Panera.
- Is money an issue? How about a friend’s house? Using a known environment for a different purpose might just provide the fresh perspective to invigorate your thinking.
Take 20 minutes now and make a plan for your personal mini-retreat.
