Play is Work is Play
I sat down early Sunday morning, determined to start writing Chapter 7 of Knowledge Flow.
Instead, I started preparing for a Monday meeting instead.
It felt wrong, working on a Sunday and ignoring the book (again) but I was too tired to fight my attention anymore.
While looking for a presentation image, I stumbled (somehow) into John Seely Brown’s work on play.
Something clicked.
The problem wasn’t procrastination — I was pushing myself to write the wrong chapter.
What I actually needed to write about, before diving into more thinking activities, was creating environments where people can explore ideas together.
Play is how humans experiment, combine ideas, and discover patterns.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d played. Let myself rest into time and explore.
Knowledge doesn’t emerge when we push harder; it emerges when systems make space for curiosity to move.
I needed to understand how to design for it.
Activity: Low-Stakes Exploration
This week, for 30 minutes:
- Pick something adjacent to your work (not on your task list)
- Set a timer for 30 minutes
- Follow your curiosity
- Don’t produce anything “useful”
- Maybe combine ideas that don’t normally meet
Then notice:
- Did new connections appear?
- Did your thinking loosen?
Read: Play
How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
by Stuart Brown, MD
A concise exploration of how play shapes the brain and behavior, showing that creativity, learning, and adaptability emerge not from effort alone, but from environments that allow exploration, experimentation, and connection.
Naming Things
Play
The condition in which ideas can be explored, combined, and reshaped without immediate pressure to produce a correct outcome.
It is a property of the environment.
Consider This
When does your work feel like play? What conditions made that possible?
And what conditions made it disappear?
Play is the highest form of research.— Albert Einstein