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Hello & welcome to Out of Office—your guide to LIVING CREATIVELY 🍇🪁🤸‍♂️🌞
For those seeking a way of living and working that feels more alive, inspiring & creative. 🌳🎨

Through cohort programs, creative workshops, and purposefully designed tools, we help individuals and teams reimagine how they work and live, spark creativity, and feel more alive every day.

How to Refill Your Well and Recharge Your Creative Energy 💭

Notes from the Field: Barcelona, November 2025

Alice Katter

Nov 14

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I recently had a conversation with my friend Matt, who had just come back from two weeks of vacation. But instead of going on a trip, he and his wife decided to stay in town.
This meant their one-year-old would still be going to daycare, giving them the rare gift of free days to themselves—after a year of what felt like constant ops mode: juggling a toddler, two demanding jobs, and barely catching a breath.

They realized their creative energy was completely depleted. Their relationship, too, could use some tending.

So often, our working lives are built on autopilot. We shuttle from a morning coffee to our screens, watch eight or more hours blur by, squeeze in a quick meal or workout, and then collapse into bed—or melt in front of Netflix because we’ve run out of energy to do anything else.
If that sounds familiar, don’t worry—you’re definitely not alone.

But what if you could feel inspired in your days again?
What if you could break up your day—grab lunch at a café, or, if the weather’s nice, sit in a park to listen to the birds? Meet a friend or colleague for lunch? Visit a museum, and return buzzing with new ideas?

That’s what I believe a creative work/life can look like.

Coming back to my friend, taking a break to take stock of where we are and how we feel is the first step. To pause, rest, and refill the well.

That might mean spending a week in your own city, exploring something new every day: visiting that exhibition you’ve had on your list, spending an hour reading a random book at the library, taking an architecture boat tour (as Matt and his wife did), or joining an art class or tufting workshop (check out our creative experiences platform for ideas).

Or maybe it’s taking a creative retreat, like one of our current CWOL cohort members who’s spending a week at a pottery residency.

7-day pottery course in Portugal by one of our Creative Living Cohort members

Or spend time in a city that fills your creative cup—for me, that’s places like Mexico City or Barcelona (where I just moved to!).

A recent field trip to El Recinte de Sant Pau in Barcelona

But it’s not just about taking time off—it’s about reimagining how you work and live. Because if you go back to the same patterns, you’ll end up depleted again before long.

In last week’s OOO Cohort session, I shared my framework of Degenerative vs. Regenerative Work.

As you can see in the graphic below, degenerative work is the kind of work that slowly drains your energy. There’s no room to pause, play, or experiment. Work becomes the center of your life, leaving little space for anything else.

Regenerative work, on the other hand, feels light, playful, and sustainable. It allows you to follow your curiosities, go down rabbit holes (or to a museum), and make space for the other parts of life that help you feel whole.

I’ll always remember my boss at a London agency many years ago. He used to tell our team to visit a gallery or a museum whenever we needed a break or new inspiration. That mindset stuck—and may have been where the first seeds for Out of Office were planted. Thank you, Anton. 🙂

In my publication Reimagining the Nature of Work, my co-author Bree and I explored different models and rhythms of working and living—from freelance to seasonal work and sabbaticals.

The key is to design your own rhythm.
Do you want to work full-time? Or do you want a mode that leaves more flexibility in your days? A change like that could also be achieved be switching from an office to a remote job, it doesn’t have to mean going freelance or starting your own business if that doesn’t feel right for you.

And even if you’re in an office job, there’s so much you can do to create small moments of exploration, rest, and play. And remember—you only work eight hours a day. There’s still plenty of time around it to spend meaningfully as well.

This summer, I led a workshop for Adobe Design called A Creative Rest: Reenergize your Work/Life, helping participants design workdays that feel more energizing and inspiring.
I sent everyone on a self-guided field trip—to a local museum, or place connected to a challenge they were working on.

Creative Reset Workshop for Adobe

A few weeks later, we gathered online to share what they’d discovered—field trips included a visit to the Henry Ford Museum, a garden used as inspiration for a neurodivergent-inclusive UX project, and more. Together, we built personal toolkits for bringing moments of inspiration and reflection into their days and teams—reimagining rituals like design crits to make space for curiosity, collaboration, and new perspectives.

So ask yourself—what can you do this week, weekend, next week, or this month to refill your creative well?

In doing so, you prioritize a creative life where you are present, can observe the little things, engage in play, pursue hobbies, take time to dream, delight in conversations with new friends, contribute your strengths, appreciate the beauty around you, celebrate moments of awe and wonder, and with that, add meaning and color to your lives.

By aligning with what brings you joy and ignites your natural energy, and emphasizing exploration and experimentation, you are able to feel well and create an environment that inspires and nurtures you.

And slowly, almost unintentionally, your downtime will begin to inspire your day job 💭

Hope you enjoyed this month’s notes from the field!

Would love to hear how you’re refilling your cup — please share any rituals and recent field trips below in the comments 👇

Alice

Alice Katter is a Creative Work/Life Coach and Founder of Out of Office. Originally from Austria, she has lived in Vienna, London, and NYC. And in between, has spent months investigating work and life in Mexico, California, Cape Town, Italy, and Barcelona, to name a few.

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