EVERYTHING
MINDFUL
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THE PREMISE
I transformed my design thinking workplace into a seemingly contradictory, competitive mindfulness game and found a passion for being a workplace culture champion.
THE ORIGINAL PROJECT
The Original Project -
Dignity and Debt
In my design thinking office, I worked on a team of six people to design solutions to make debt collection more humane.
Current collection practices are often predatory, confusing to navigate, and working with people at the most financially difficult and traumatic points in their lives.
Partners included:
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The Keller Center for Innovation at Princeton University (Tiger Challenge)
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The Dignity and Debt Network
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NYC nonprofit DaisyDebt
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The City of Trenton, NJ
The Original Project - Design, Interviews, Resource Guides
After research and field interviews with debtors, financial coaches, and legal services, we mapped out the debt journey with flow charts and diagrams.
We prototyped a website questionnaire that would diagnose issues and guide debtors to what to do at critical points. The website never launched - however, it did spark an interest in resource navigation, which resulted in my infamous 500+ page guide to navigating higher education, which you can find at Everything Instructions.
THE MINDFULNESS GAMES
Mindfulness at Work
Andrea Mecquel, a kinesthetic practitioner and lecturer at the Lewis Center for the Arts, was brought into our office at the Keller Center to facilitate workplace mindfulness. A few weeks in, she requested a volunteer to help her promote mindfulness.
After a few moments of silence, I volunteered. While my main project had stalled, the mindfulness initiative gave me a chance to prototype with a live audience: my coworkers.
The Mindfulness Games - Premise
Recognizing that my 18 coworkers had a competitive spirit, I motivated them to engage in mindfulness through creating "The Mindfulness Games" - where meditation and mindful activity would earn them points, and top scorers would receive prizes. Over five weeks, I iterated every week, adding in new rules and point bonuses reflecting additional office values.
The Mindfulness Games - Rules
1. Earn 1 point for every 5 minutes of meditation
Value: Mindfulness
2. Earn 4 points for every new mindful activity done, plus 1 point for every 7.5 minutes of that
activity (i.e., slower returns than pure meditation)
Value: Discovery
3. Earn an additional 0.5x multiplier on mindful activities done with a friend, with an additional 0.5x multiplier per friend involved (e.g., activities with one friend multiplied by 1.5x, with two friends by 2.0x, etc.)
Value: Collaboration
4. Earn an additional 1.0x multiplier on mindful activities you do with your randomly chosen office "Friend of the Week."
Value: Office Cohesion
The Mindfulness Games - Prizes
1st Place:
A portable label maker!
2nd Place:
A handheld back massager!
Top Half of Scorers:
A 20-second (consensual!) mindful hug!
The Mindfulness Games - Results
With 60+ hours of meditation and 120+ hours of mindful activities, my coworkers really did embrace mindfulness. Motivation-wise, despite the odd paradox of competing for mindfulness, people discovered how to integrate mindfulness into their life in new ways that work for them - that's how practice can become habit. Fun design leads to engaged results.
I came out of this with a core belief that the workplace can be both fun and productive.
Internal culture shifts can (and perhaps, should) be driven by regular workers.
Bonus - Tater Tot Parties
In terms of workplace fun, during my time at City of Tulsa, I developed an infamous reputation for bringing in massive amounts of tater tots to share. When I left Tulsa, my coworkers even held a surprise goodbye party, with an entire bowl of tater tots.
For more workplace fun, check out Everything Graffiti.