Ashley Worobec
Just as many rivers have been directed and controlled over time, humans have also been expected to work in more industrious and trackable ways. This virtual session explores how slowing down and creating space for our minds to wander can allow for deeper and lasting work.
Our capitalistic obsession with productivity and efficiency impacts how and whether we have time to daydream or let our minds wander, a crucial aspect of imagining different futures.
Much like a river will take its time from mountain to sea—flooding plains, changing course, moving sediment to nurture new plant growth—people need time to wonder and wander throughout their lives. Only by taking time to observe a bit longer, ask a few more questions, and follow overlooked paths will we be able to shift towards just and regenerative futures.
In this workshop, participants will have space to remember the wonderings and wanderings in their lives that have led to deeper connections and stronger insights and consider how to create and cultivate more time for them in their work. From there, we will zoom out to explore how we might foster these ways of being and working at larger scales in service of systemic change and what those futures might look like through the use of a futures wheel.
KEYWORDS: flow, speed of trust, futuring, futures wheel, participatory, imagination, creativity, productivity, slow productivity
RSD TOPIC(S): Health & Well-Being, Methods & Methodology, Society & Culture
Facilitator/organiser profile
Ashley Worobec, Transition Designer, Change/Magic, ashleyworobec.com, hello@ashleyworobec.com.
Acknowledgements
This workshop is inspired by the Duwamish River, which meanders its way through mountains, forests, and communities to the Salish Sea, on which the city of Seattle sits. I’d like to acknowledge that I am on the traditional land (and water) of the Duwamish People, and I honour the Duwamish Tribe, the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, and other tribes, organisations, and people, past and present, caring for our shared world.
I would also like to acknowledge three books that inspired this session, including The River That Made Seattle (Cummings, 2020), From What Is to What If (Hopkins, 2019), and Slow Productivity (Newport, 2024).
A comparison of the original meanders of the Duwamish River to its shape after straightening. Source: Burke Museum.