{"id":17057,"date":"2016-03-07T13:44:40","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T18:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/?p=17057"},"modified":"2016-03-07T13:44:40","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T18:44:40","slug":"despacio-day-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/2016\/03\/07\/despacio-day-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Despacio Day 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Monday, February 29th, Despacio celebrated Despacio Day<\/a> for the first time. February 29th is essentially an extra day that we add every four years to correct an astronomical anomaly<\/a>. We therefore suggested\u00a0that companies and organizations treat it as a special day, giving employees time to develop activities that\u00a0improve workplace productivity and quality of life.<\/p>\n

\"D\u00eda<\/a><\/p>\n

What did people propose?<\/h3>\n

We launched a social media campaign with the logo above and a survey in English and Spanish. We received 60 responses of what people would do with an extra day in the year. Most respondents were in\u00a0Colombia but\u00a0we also received responses from\u00a0Venezuela, Portugal, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Ecuador and\u00a0Panama. The most common responses had to do with physical activity (exercising, playing sports, riding a bike, walking) or restful activities like reading, going to the movies or eating a good meal. A few press outlets helped us get the word out– check out the\u00a0articles from\u00a0smart\u00a0magazine <\/a><\/em>and\u00a0\u00a0El Espectador<\/a><\/em><\/em>!\u00a0<\/em>We also uploaded a letter<\/a> explaining Despacio Day for people to show to their bosses.<\/p>\n

\"El<\/a>

Despacio staff\u00a0starting off Despacio Day with exercise\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

What did we do?<\/h3>\n

Using people’s suggestions, Despacio organized a day of simple, fun activities for the staff. We began Despacio Day with an exercise routine in the park behind the office. It was tough, but it made us appreciate the importance of starting the day with physical activity! Afterwards, we watched “The Triplets of Belleville,” a French animated film that deals with topics of bikes, city life,\u00a0and family.<\/p>\n

In the afternoon, we had a picnic lunch\u00a0by\u00a0Quebrada la Vieja, a creek and park\u00a0near the office. We enjoyed the nice weather and park environment while we chatted and ate.\u00a0We spent the rest of the afternoon sharing stories in a caf\u00e9 and preparing\u00a0for the evening’s party. Despacio Day was a lot of fun\u00a0because it allowed us to enjoy time and share with each other without the pressures of work.<\/p>\n

\"Picnic<\/a>

Picnic at\u00a0Quebrada la Vieja<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

What did others do?<\/h3>\n

Other people sent us photos and stories from Despacio Day.\u00a0Nick Kaufmann<\/a>\u00a0did a “soundwalk<\/a>” in\u00a0Portland, Maine, listening to and observing the varied sounds of his city. Angelica Castro was in Asunci\u00f3n for Despacio Day, where the 29th happened to be an official holiday. After working hard for a while, she therefore decided to truly appreciate the extra day by reading a book by Juan Gabriel Vasquez and enjoying the sun. She even sent us a photo (below)<\/p>\n

Carlosfelipe Pardo, Despacio’s executive director, spent his day working (as usual) but in a different way. He tried to write and draw in a notebook to see what ideas emerged free of\u00a0the distractions of a computer. Jimena Rivera also used her Despacio Day differently. She told us that after waking up in a different town, she returned to her own early in the morning. She worked most of the day but also spent time biking around the city, taking\u00a0pictures of\u00a0the trees (below) and walking barefoot. She ended her day with a nice coffee and then to the movies with her kids.<\/p>\n

\"Uno<\/a>

Jimena\u00a0saw a number of beautiful trees like this one during Despacio Day\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

What did we learn?<\/h3>\n

Despacio Day is an important initiative that provides space for changes to the typical routine. These changes can affect workplace productivity and quality of life long-term. The idea is closely linked with other initiatives that we have carried out about work environments, such as the book<\/p>\n

Pensamos que el D\u00eda Despacio es una iniciativa muy importante que permite cambios a la jornada t\u00edpica, los cuales afectan la productividad y calidad de vida en el trabajo a largo plazo. El concepto es muy vinculado con otras iniciativas que hemos realizado sobre el \u00e1mbito laboral, como el libro “How to Bring your Pet to Work<\/a>” and the\u00a0“Office in the Park<\/a>” experiment. However, despite people’s interest in Despacio Day, we encountered challenges in making it happen. Workplace inflexibility, existing commitments and a lack of understanding of the concept were\u00a0the main\u00a0obstacles.<\/p>\n

\"El<\/a>

Pardo’s semi-Despacio Day\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Despacio Day 2020!<\/h3>\n

In 2012, Despacio Day was nothing more than a\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0on the website. This year, it was bigger, encompassing a worldwide survey and activities for Despacio staff.\u00a0Given the challenges we faced, we want a bigger and more formalized Despacio Day on February 29, 2020. We would like to work more directly with companies and organization to carry out creative or fun activities within\u00a0the workplace.\u00a0We are also going to try to make Despacio Day an actual holiday.\u00a0<\/strong>We have four years and believe we can do it! If you want to help us with Despacio Day 2020, please write\u00a0ome@despacio.org<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Monday, February 29th, Despacio celebrated Despacio Day for the first time. February 29th is essentially an extra day that we add every four years to correct an astronomical anomaly. We therefore suggested\u00a0that companies and organizations treat it as a special day, giving employees time to develop activities that\u00a0improve workplace productivity and quality of life.…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[262,263,264,265,266,219],"class_list":["post-17057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sin-categoria","tag-calidad-de-vida-en","tag-despacio-day","tag-dia-despacio-en","tag-quality-of-life","tag-trabajo-en","tag-work"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/despacio.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}