We Gave Ourselves a Week to Be Unproductive

Reflections from Outline Studios' Brain Vacation week on creative freedom, decision-making, and making things just for yourself.

If you are a high-performing creative studio, you should read this.

Like any other creatively curious human, each of us also had a pile of saved ideas that we wanted to work on… someday. But we never seemed to have the time for them.

So we decided to keep one week aside just for this.

We logged in and logged out at our usual times, but instead of working on client projects, we created things only for ourselves. 

No client briefs, no deadlines, no strategy.

We made a bunch of unruly paintings, clay pieces, lamps, bag handles, origami animals, home decor, terrariums, and a lot more.

We called it Brain Vacation week.

And while we went into it thinking we'd spend a week making random things, we came out with a lot more to think about.

1. Having the freedom to do anything is harder than it sounds.

As designers, we're used to working within constraints.

There's a brief to refer to, a strategy to guide us and a problem we're trying to solve. Even when the creative possibilities are endless, we have something to anchor our decisions to.

But what happens when you take all of that away?

You can make anything. Use any material. Follow any idea. Change your mind halfway through. Start over entirely.

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Until you actually have to decide what to make. 

We realised that having unlimited possibilities can be just as paralysing as having too many restrictions. Sometimes, we spent more time figuring out what to do than doing it.

Without a brief to guide us, every decision was ours to make. And every decision came with the possibility of a hundred other things we could have done instead.

t made us think about how much we rely on constraints to move forward. A brief doesn't just tell us what to do; it helps us decide what not to do.

Maybe creative freedom isn't the absence of constraints. Maybe it's learning to navigate uncertainty when there are none.

2. Not every creative day feels creative.

We'd love to tell you that a week of making things for ourselves was one long, beautiful montage of ideas coming to life.

It wasn't.

Some things came together effortlessly. Others were frustrating, messy, or nowhere close to what we'd imagined. There were moments when we ran out of ideas, questioned what we were making, or simply didn't know what to do next.

And that's an uncomfortable place to be when you've set aside time specifically to be creative.

But it was also a useful reminder: being creative doesn't mean having a brilliant idea every day.

Sometimes, creativity looks like experimenting with something that doesn't work. Sometimes, it means sitting with a problem for longer than you'd like. And sometimes, it means recognising that you're not enjoying something anymore and giving yourself permission to stop. 

We often talk about the joy of making things, but rarely about the patience it takes to get through the parts that aren't enjoyable.

During Brain Vacation, we experienced both. The excitement of an idea coming together and the frustration of trying to make it work.

And somewhere between the two, we learnt to trust the process a little more. Not everything needs to work immediately. Not every bad attempt means the idea is bad. Sometimes, you just need to spend more time with it.

3. Creativity isn't just about what you make. It's also about how you think.

There's something interesting about watching people work on things that have no right or wrong answers.

In our usual work, we see each other's outcomes: the presentations, the identities, the packaging, the final designs.

During Brain Vacation, we got to see more of what happens before an outcome exists.

The hesitation before starting. The decision to try something different. The willingness to start over. The moment someone finally figures something out after spending far longer on it than they expected.

We were all working on different things, but we were also learning about how each of us approaches uncertainty. And it made us think about the parts of creativity that don't always show up in a portfolio.

Patience. Curiosity. The ability to sit with an unresolved problem. Knowing when to keep going and when to change direction.

These aren't skills we use only when we're making art. They're part of how we approach design, too.

We can't say that one week of personal projects transformed our creative process. But it gave us a chance to notice things we might otherwise have missed.

4. Unproductive doesn't always mean unproductive.

By the end of the week, we had more than a collection of paintings, clay pieces, lamps, and other experiments.

A new way of organising our work had begun to emerge. Some of our team members found themselves creating content of their own. And we started a little reading ritual: twenty minutes after lunch, spent reading together. These days, we're making our way through Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

None of these things were part of the plan.

We went in expecting to make things. We came out with things we hadn't even thought to look for.

Perhaps that is a different kind of productivity - one that doesn't always show up in a timesheet or produce an immediate result but still leaves you with something valuable.

So, should every creative studio try this?

We think so. With one important caveat: plan for it.

We know how difficult it is to take an entire week away from client work, especially when you're a small studio. There are projects to deliver, timelines to honour, and responsibilities that don't disappear just because you want to experiment with clay for an afternoon.

Brain Vacation wasn't about pretending those things don't matter. We planned the week in advance and made space for it in our schedules.

And yes, it might feel impractical. You might wonder whether the time could be spent doing something more productive.

We understand that instinct. We probably would have said the same thing 2 years back.

But we realised that not everything needs to be justified to clients, as long as we are responsible with the deliverables.

The important thing is to crave out that time and protect it from becoming another “urgent request” from a client.

So if you're a creative studio, we urge you (force you) to try this with your team.

Plan it well in advance. Put it on the calendar. Protect it.

And then let go of the need to know what will come out of it.

You might make something wonderful. You might make a complete mess. You might discover something about your team, your process, or yourself that you weren't expecting.

Or you might simply have a week of making things for no particular reason.

We think that's reason enough.