Want to Accomplish More in Your Business? Take a Sabbatical

Every seven years, designer Stefan Sagmeister closes his New York design studio for a year-long sabbatical. As he explains in a TED talk, with each sabbatical, he pursues “little experiments, things that are always difficult to accomplish during the regular working year.” The effect on Sagmeister’s studio has been profound. “Basically, everything we’ve done in the seven years following the first sabbatical came out of the thinking of that one single year,” he says. Don’t think you can take a year-long sabbatical? Schedule more time away from the office for open-sky thinking in the woods or at the beach. It may possibly be the most productive thing you do all quarter.