X-Project Fridays
X-Project Fridays
Mezzacello is important to me, but it is also sometimes a lot of work. Luckily I am blessed with time to work on these with a day off from work to live my life and get chores done. I call these Fridays, X Project Fridays.
It is really tough to do the work on a farm after work - especially in Winter! It is also really important to me that I get a day to run errands and plan projects at Mezzacello. The PAST Foundation is a critical facet of this .
The Four Day Work Week
A few months ago, my CEO and boss proposed that PAST staff should try to manage work/life balance better. So she proposed that PAST try to work our 40 hours on and off grid Monday to Thursday, so we can have Fridays off to live in the real world. Not the Weekend/evening world, but the 9-5 world with opportunity to live in that world during our week.
Why X-Project?
This 4-Day work week was a double blessing! Taking a note from Google, several of my co-workers and I took this opportunity to explore our passions, our lives, and our hobbies. We call it our X-Project day.
X-Project Friday is the day where we get to reflect on and explore more of what we saw and worked on during the week. Then on Friday we get to explore that further through our own lenses in our own way.
Putting The Applied In STEM
On my Fridays I get to explore my passion for Applied STEM and agriculture. It might seem like an odd congruence, but it is critically important to me. Without a high-functioning physical opportunity to explore gardening and food, I would be miserable.
So Fridays off and X-Project is a gift to me personally. Then when you complete the loop, you will see why my X-Project days are so important. I live on an urban farm where I run summer camps in partnership with the PAST Foundation and multiple other non-profits and organizations around Central Ohio.
Without X-Project Friday, I would be exhausted! But with X-Project Friday, I get to be a #WorldClass citizen of the world and in my community. I love my work, I enjoy my job, I feel like I get a shot to really change the world for the better.
X-Projects Bring Purpose to Life
You want purpose? Find a way to live a life that you can dream about. Wake up knowing you are unique and passionate enough to fight for those dreams to be real.
That is what a four day work week has done for me. I do NOT take it for granted. It is the magical bean that this Jack in the beanstalk intends to plant; to one day climb up into the sky and into his best dreams.