Alice Katter
on Playful Work
Guess what?
Slowing down offers your body the most precious gift: the opportunity to regenerate. The space where concentration and creativity can rise again. Where new perspectives, greater clarity, and renewed focus are more than welcome. Slowing down helps you be better at work, more in line with your Self and the world around you: “We have come to see the very notion of slowing down and leisure not as essential to the human spirit, but as a luxury reserved for the privileged or those who are lazy.”
Alice Katter is an optimistic Culture and Community Strategist fascinated by understanding how we can design work to be more regenerative.
She uses human-centred design to create communities centred around belonging, creativity, and joy. Alice is the one who can help you design a life where work is part of what makes you flourish and form stronger bonds through the principles of Play.
After working in the brand strategy and advertising industry, she decided to start her consultancy, as she needed more flexibility in her work life. Alice noticed that she had the best ideas by not sitting at her desk, but by spending time outdoors, working from different places, and meeting new people. That’s when she started researching the influence of rest, play and leisure on our creativity and well-being. The discovery? The most significant human achievements and key breakthroughs have taken place in times of play, moments of leisure and contemplation.
That’s when she decided to create Out Of Office Network: a monthly newsletter and space that offers tools to reimagine the way we work. It is now evolving into a community-powered research and design lab committed to scaling a new culture of work by making work, life, and the interplay between the two more regenerative.
As Alice Katter says, being “out of office is not just about travel and living in different countries, but about looking at the world with open eyes, expanding our experiences and networks, and making space for the holistic and creative human beings we all have inside us.” She encourages you to be a childish adult: let your mind wander, rest, daydream and imagine. Step out of this productivity-fanatic society. Play is not a waste of time!
Stay playful, stay out of office and join Alice’s network to ignite playfulness, creativity, joy, and belonging in the workplace and beyond.
Thank you, Alice Katter, for being Playful!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: Alice Katter
Company / Institution: Out of Office Network
Title: Culture and Community Strategist and Designer
Website: alicekatter.com / getoutofoffice.network
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicekatter/
Country of origin: Austria
Country you currently live in: US/Europe
Your personal definition of Sustainability: Sustainability is about more than just not extracting, it’s about creating work and a life that feels nourishing. It is focused on community, harmony, long-term thinking, creativity, and playfulness, where rest, care, and balance are interwoven into the fabric of professional and organizational growth and success.
Main business challenge you face: Work not being designed to be sustainable and regenerative. Degenerative cultures focused on the notions of productivity-obsession, scarcity, and competitive individualism mindset.
Main driver that keeps you going: Optimism and the belief that we should all live a good life.
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: My energy and enthusiasm.
The trait you most value in others: Genuine care and interest.
Passions & little things that bring you joy: Exploring new places, throwing the wheel, sitting in coffee shops and nerding out over articles and research, observing little plants and flowers, hummingbirds, outdoor yoga, spending slow time with my loved ones.
The #inspirators who determined you to take the sustainability path:
Schumacher College
Greg McKeown
Simon Berkler
A hint or starting point for companies or professionals that are taking the first steps in the sustainability journey: Understand what you really value, what lights you up, find people who care about similar things. Then, co-create the change you want to see in the world. Try it on, and iterate based on how it feels.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope: Take one step at a time, and don’t fall into the trap of short-term thinking and joyless urgency.
Books that had a major impact on you:
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Dare to Lead by Brene Brown
Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown
Thrive by Ariana Huffington
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Creativity, Inc. by Edwin Catmull and Amy Wallace
Emergent Strategy by Octavia Butler
Small Is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher
Beloved Economies: Transforming How We Work by Jess Rimington, Joanna Levitt Cea
Blogs / Websites / Podcasts etc. you visit frequently:
OnBeing
Adam Grant Worklife
Brene Brown
Ezra Klein Show
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing: Jazz, my yoga teacher’s playlists.
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: Probably every place I travelled to somehow left a mark, a small new perspective or impression on me, but most recently especially Cape Town and Mexico.
Global Sustainability Voices you recommend us to follow:
Schumacher College
Small is Beautiful
Daniel Christian Wahl
Trends in Sustainability we should keep an eye on: Moving from sustainability to regeneration.
Best places for business networking (online or offline): I don’t really do “professional” networking, my networking is play. Therefore, some places I love are CreativeMornings and House of Beautiful Business.
Events we should attend: See above + would love to see some of you at our Out of Office gatherings!
Associations, business clubs, tribes you belong to – and why: House of Beautiful Business, small tribes within my network.
Sustainable Development courses / trainings / certifications that really teach us how to have an impact:
Business as a Force for Good
Penn XSD | Stuart Weitzman School of Design
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030: I’m hopeful that we’re shifting away from classic rationalist corporatism and work-centred lifestyle to a life-centred lifestyle and economy – one that embraces nature, and well-being. As HBB writes so beautifully, “one that values all life and living systems on earth, and understands business as a life-affirming and life-like force.”
Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030: Recent steps backwards to a more capitalist and effectiveness-only driven culture of work, rather than a regenerative culture.
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today: Imagination, collective co-creation, and community care.
Quote that inspires you:
“How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.”
(Annie Dillard, The Writing Life)
Your own quote that will inspire us:
