How do we make working life feel more like life?

Today is #OutdoorOfficeDay – 11th June 2026

The obvious interpretation is simple.

Take your work outside. And yes, that’s a great place to start.

Take a call while walking.
Have a meeting on a park bench.
Drink your tea outside.
Look up from your screen for a few minutes.

But perhaps Outdoor Office Day is asking a bigger question. We often talk about work-life balance. Yet work happens during our lives.

We spend a huge proportion of our waking hours working.

We learn at work.
We build relationships at work.
We solve problems at work.
We contribute to society through work.

So if work isn’t life, what is it? Perhaps we’ve accidentally separated something that was never really separate. For most of human history there wasn’t a distinction between “work” and “life”.

There was simply life.

Finding food.
Building shelter.
Making things.
Learning.
Caring.
Resting.
Playing.
Being part of a community.

Somewhere along the way we became very good at putting activities into boxes.

Work.
Home.
Leisure.
Nature.

Useful categories perhaps. But they can sometimes make us forget that we’re still people first. Maybe that’s why a short walk can change the feel of a meeting.

Why a conversation can sometimes achieve more than a dozen emails.

Why changing the view can change the thinking.

Why drinking tea beneath a tree can feel strangely important.

Not because productivity has stopped. But because life hasn’t.

So perhaps Outdoor Office Day isn’t really about taking work outside. Perhaps it’s about remembering that work happens inside life, not the other way around.