Every year, we take time away from our usual workspace and head somewhere close to nature for up to two months. For us this isn’t just about a change of scenery—it’s a fundamental part of how we work and grow as an agency. Our workation is a time to step back, reflect, and realign with what truly matters.
This year, we chose the Norwegian mountains between Jotunheimen and Rondane. The decision wasn’t random—it was shaped by a realization we had last year during our workation in the French Alps. We love winter and we love skiing and snowboarding but during our time in one of the big French skiing resorts we also saw the downsides of mass ski tourism.
As an environmental communications agency, we want to be mindful of our impact. We also realised that we enjoy a bit more quiet. So this year, we searched for a place where we could still experience a real winter, stay away from the bustling skiing resorts and hence not support the never-ending expansion of these resorts. This also aligns much more with our values. Even though we will still go to a resort every once in a while, exploring areas less affected by mass tourism feels good.
Norway also felt like the right choice. With a personal history of studying and working here at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research – NINA, it was a place that already connected us to nature. We found a remote cabin away from distractions—somewhere we could work deeply, reflect without interruptions, and step outside into the wild whenever we needed a reset.
Work, Reflection, and Realignment
Being here means releasing the pressure that builds up throughout the year. It’s a space where we can finally think about the bigger picture. We spend time brainstorming, setting new goals, and refining how we work and how we look at problems and solutions. We allow ourselves to dream big, experiment with new methods, and challenge the way we do things.
But a workation isn’t just about ideation—it’s also about balance. It gives us space to catch up on the long-overdue tasks we kept pushing aside. One of these long outstanding tasks that required our attention was the revision of the dissemination plan for Phito. We wanted to redefine the communication activities of the project and the involvement of our 17+ partners. The challenge was to align the itinerary of the Phito Van – the unique communication and data collection tool – with the planned activities of our partners and the project. The work on this task continues, of course, but we got some new creative ideas and are looking forward to putting them into practice.
But while we focus on deep work where we try to reduce meetings, we also give ourselves the freedom to explore, ski in the backcountry, recharge in nature and spend time in the local café testing Norwegian cinnamon buns and other pastries. Striking the life-work balance is very important to us and we realise how much spending time in nature doing things we like increases our creativity and even productivity – and that’s why we take workations.
What We’re Taking Home
After two months here, we’re bringing back more than just fresh ideas. We want to work with our values in mind, focusing more on strategy and conceptualization this year. And that comes for most of our projects.
We have some exciting tasks aligned ahead of us. With Phito, we’re getting ready for a visit to one of our food system and innovation partners in Hungary, and an exciting project plenary meeting in Albania while producing curious Phito Stories about the world of farming and food production.
With Life-IRIS, we’re preparing a fun campaign on promoting the restored river areas through leisurely activities and the collection of stories about rivers. And recently, we got the great news in that we will continue producing and co-designing educational content for the GZP platform and many other fun projects.
See what other projects we worked on to get a better idea of what we do.
More risk, more fun
While we’re at it, one of our meta goals is to embrace small risks without fear of losing control – about stepping out of our comfort zone and learning something new.
And that goes for the acquisition of new projects as well as for work on our current projects. Most importantly, we want to strengthen our relationships—building a real ecosystem of collaborators and partners who inspire and support each other.
Get in touch if this resonates with you; we’d be glad to explore how we could work together!
This workation reminded us that productivity isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about clarity. And sometimes, the best way to move forward is to step away, breathe, and look at everything from a higher perspective.
