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If you’re ready to spend dedicated time on your business, finding motivation in your everyday environment can be hard. That’s where working retreats can plan a major role in the success of moving your business forward! In today’s episode, I’m sharing why I plan working retreats with my business besties and how I approach them!

What are Working Retreats?

Setting aside dedicated time to work on your business can be a game-changer for the success of your business, but how can you do that without getting distracted by everything you do for your clients and the day-to-day responsibilities in your business? Introducing working retreats may be the answer! These retreats could also be referred to as a working vacation or as me and my business bestie like to call it, a workation.

Working retreats provide you with the opportunity to get away from distractions, focus on a list of goals or even a big project, and move the needle forward in your business. You can make these work for you by selecting your preferred location, plan how you’ll work, and who you’ll work with!

Why Working Retreats are So Important

I’ve incorporated working retreats into my routine pretty consistently over the last five years, and because of that dedication and the results that come out of them, I truly believe in the power of working retreats. Each working retreat serves the same goal in my business: to work on it rather than in it. I love to use this time to work on new projects, services, and offerings within my business. Let’s review a few of the benefits of working retreats and why they work so well for business owners.

You’ll Have Dedicated Time to Create Something New

One of the most important reasons behind hosting a working retreat is to have dedicated time to focus on a particular project or create something new. As we all know, we as business owners are busy. We have so many responsibilities to manage in the day-to-day of our businesses. Those daily tasks and responsibilities top our priorities and become our only focus. Therefore, all of our other ideas get pushed to the wayside or they get moved off of your current to-do list to a “to-do later” list.

Having that dedicated time is so important to be able to move forward on working on projects, creating new services, or growing your business, so that you’re not just sitting stagnant in where you’re at in your business.

New Environments Can Change Your Perspectives

In addition to having dedicated time, a working retreat allows for you to change your environment, which can allow you to shift your mindset and perspective. By removing yourself from your normal environment, your brain is then open to all these new ways of creative thinking that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do if you were just sitting at your desk. Your daily office is a place where you associate the everyday tasks of your business, where you’re in your inbox and stuck in client work.

Being able to remove yourself from the day-to-day responsibilities and tasks that you have will allow you the creative freedom to grow. This environmental shift is a crucial factor between creating something amazing and stuck in the idea of it all.

You’ll Remove the Pressure of Daily Tasks

The third reason and benefit to going on working retreats is that when you step away from the day to day responsibilities of your work, you’re giving yourself freedom and removing the pressure that comes with client work and expectations. This freedom will lead you to more creative thinking and allow you to release any kind of pressures you have on you to meet deadlines, to meet expectations that somebody else has of you, in turn, allowing you to really open up your mind and open up your heart to your dreams.

How to Plan Your Working Retreats

Just as it is important to understand why you need to have a working retreat, how to plan them and execute a successful working retreat is essential. When you begin planning your working retreat, I want you to really reflect on you, your needs, and the needs of your business.

Reflection is key.

Let’s walk through three main things you need to reflect on and plan for when it comes to how you’ll host your working retreat—this may take a little trial and error over time to find what works best for you.

Decide on the Type of Space You See Yourself Thriving In

Selecting the space you’ll host your working retreat in will all be based on the type of environments that help you thrive. This could be a hotel room or a house from AirBnB, but it could also depend on if you prefer to be in a city where you can walk to coffee shops or on a mountain where you won’t get distracted.

It’s really important to understand and differentiate vacation mode from inspirational vibes when selecting where you’ll stay. You want to be in a place that motivates you to thrive and get work done.

Reflect on How You Process Best

When it comes to how you process best, think specifically about process with or without people present. This will be a big component of how you plan your working retreat and whether or not you invite people to join you, but also who you invite to join you.

Are you the type of person who likes to talk things out, get feedback, and be challenged? Do you prefer to put your head down, go after your goal and get work done? Based on how you prefer to work may determine the people you invite, or if you invite anyone at all.

Everyone works differently, which is why I believe you need to really think about how you’ve worked with others and if it will be a benefit or a distraction to bring others with you.

Goal Setting

The purpose of your working retreat is to get something done, which is why goal setting is so important. You can approach goal setting for your working retreat in whatever way works best for you, but you need to know what you want to come out of the retreat with. For me, that means having a very loose structure for my working retreats. While I go in with a few goals, I am also open to the idea of shifting my goals based on feedback and conversations with the people I go with.

So I encourage you to set your goals in a way that works best for you!

To get the most out of goal setting on your working retreat, make sure you download my free Goal Setting Supply List! In this list, I’ve complied all of my favorite tools that I use for planning in life and business–plus what I bring on my own working retreats. Grab this free resource below and get to planning whatever journey you take next!

DOWNLOAD NOW

If you decide to set up your own working retreat, I’d love to hear about how this goes for you and your business. Let me know how you planned your working retreat, plus what you accomplished on it as well! Shoot me a DM over on Instagram at @laylee_emadi.

Review the Transcript:

Welcome to so here’s the thing, the podcast for small business owners, entrepreneurs and creative educators who are ready to take their business to the next level, through candid conversations, tactical approaches and a few unpopular opinions. We’re lifting the veil on what it takes to build both a life and a business that you love. I’m your host, Laylee Emadi, a coach for creatives and founder of the creative educator Academy, where I help entrepreneurs step into the role of industry leaders and educators. I’m so glad that you’re here. Now let’s jump into today’s episode.

Hey, friends, welcome back to the show. This week, we’re going to be talking all about the beauty of the working retreat. This is something that I probably should have and could have talked about a long time ago on this on this show. But I didn’t actually realize how many people needed to hear about it. And were interested in hearing about it until I started sharing that it was something that I did on a regular basis. And I started sharing about it in response to people wondering, how do I keep coming out with new projects all the time?

Now, to clarify, I say all the time, but I’m talking like this span of the past, maybe like four or five years, I’ve consistently been creating new projects in new offerings and kind of new services on a regular basis. And the number one question I got asked was, how do you keep coming out with these new things while still maintaining your current business? So I’m talking about maintaining all the other facets of my business while still creating new things to put out there. And so what I did, I got this question a lot from, you know, general entrepreneurs, but especially for my creative educator Academy students who were trying to create new educational offerings, while still maintaining their service based businesses, which is exactly what I did before I started the Academy. And so I would teach them you know, my best time management tricks.

And my best tips for scheduling, I would try to kind of like lift that veil on what my day to day looked like, what my planning looked like, what the execution looked like. But I left this little juicy secret out because I didn’t realize it was even a secret at the time. And I didn’t realize it played such an important role in the things that I was creating. And that is the working retreat, or the working vacation, whatever you want to call it, my big bestie. And I call it a workstation made up word, it’s cool, let’s go with it. But you can call it whatever you want. And we’re going to talk today about the why, and the how behind a working retreat. And I’m really excited to get this information to you guys. Because I think for some of you, it could be a game changer. And if it is, I’d love to hear from you. If you listen this episode, and you’re like, This sounds great for me, and you follow through and do it, please let me know how it goes for you. Alright, before we dive in, I’d love to talk about what exactly does a worker treat or a workstation, whatever you want to call it? What does that actually mean. And of course, what it means to me might be different than what it ends up meaning to you.

Because like I said, this isn’t something that’s formal, I didn’t learn this from anybody, I just kind of created the concept on my own. And it’s evolved over time in my business. And it’s something I do regularly in my business for a years now. So it’s definitely taken on a meaning of its own for me, and I’m excited to share that with you. But essentially, what I do is, every so often, in my business, I will take about a week off of any type, like I put an out of office, you know, email responder up, I tell my clients, I’m going out of office for a week, and I rent a house. And I grab a couple of friends. And I’ll talk about that a little bit later in the episode about why I do these with other people. But I grab a cup of friends, we rent a house and we go and we work on list of goals. Or maybe we work on really hashing out what a new idea could look like. And then I start working on the implementation of that idea. So that’s a like a very general bird’s eye view of what a working retreat looks like for me. And now we’re going to be talking about why you should think about implementing it into your own business. So first and foremost, the most important reason behind doing these working retreats is to have dedicated time to create something new or dedicated time to really knock something out. Now what happens when we have a really busy or thriving and successful business, whether it’s service base, whether you have multiple offerings, whatever you do, you know that we get caught up in the day to day of our businesses.

We’re just trying to make sure that things are running smoothly. We’re doing the things that are, you know, quote unquote, important or urgent to us in those days in those weeks. And so all of these Other ideas that we may have get pushed to the wayside and they kind of get moved from like to do list to to do list. I don’t know if you guys do that. But I find myself transferring like, new ideas, big picture ideas from page to page, because I never get around to them. So having that dedicated time is super important to be able to actually move forward on creating new things, so that you’re not just sitting stagnant in where you’re at in your business. So just that dedicated time away is super important. The second reason that you might want to think about implementing this is something that a lot of people discount on that like how important it is. But having a new environment can be one of the most crucial factors between creating something amazing, and just being stuck in the idea of it all. So if you are, let’s say you love your workspace, I love my office. And so it’s not really in my nature to be like I’ve got to get out of here.

Like I love my work setup. And I worked really hard to make it that way. It took years for me to love, where I show up and work every day. And so I don’t really want to quote unquote, escape it. But by removing myself from my normal environment, my brain is then open to all these new ways of like creative thinking that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I was just sitting at my desk, in my office where I’m at, day in and day out where I’m in my inbox where I’m in my client work, like being able to remove myself from that environment and put myself into a new, inspirational kind of motivational environment is super, super important. And that really plays in together with the first point of having that dedicated time. So having a dedicated time and a brand new environment work together to make sure that my mind is really open to new possibilities. And the third reason that I would encourage you to consider adding in a working retreat is that when you step away from the day to day responsibilities of your work, and you’re able to actually put that out of office, email responder up to tell everybody you’re out, you kind of have this freedom and this lack of pressure, that also similarly to that new inspirational environment is going to lead you to more creative thinking, it’s going to let you kind of release any kind of pressures you have on you to meet deadlines, to, you know, meet expectations that somebody else has a view and allows you to really kind of open up again, open up that mind and open up your heart to where am I actually being, you know, pushed toward, like, what,

what idea do I really need to double down on what other people need and could, you know, use for me to better their lives and to better my business. And so like, taking away that pressure of the day to day really opens up just every possibility when it comes to being able to think creatively and outside the box. So dedicated time to was a new environment. And three is the lack of pressure that will hopefully again lead to more creative thinking and just more innovative thinking. So those are the why behind this whole concept. There’s so many other factors. But I really just wanted to again, keep this kind of short and give you like the bare bones overview of like, the most important factors. So those are the top three for me for sure.

Now let’s talk about the how because you guys know I’m all about actionable, actionable advice, and like tangible tactical things you can actually do. Once you’re done listening to this episode, the first thing you’re going to need to do is decide on the type of space that you see yourself really thriving in. Now, disclaimer here. Like I mentioned, I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve tested out a lot of different environments and different types of spaces. And I’ve found what works for me. But what works for me may not work for you. So a few examples of this would be do you work better in a place that is really like a statically? Beautiful? Does it need to be near a body of water or in the mountains? Or do you care? Does it need to be in a city that’s bustling and busy? Or does it need to be tucked away in a quiet place where you can really be alone with your thoughts, spending some time really thinking through the types of spaces that you thrive in is super important. Another example of thinking about the type of space would be do you enjoy staying in a hotel where you kind of have a lot of things taken care of for you.

Maybe you need a suite that has a little bit more room. Maybe you like the hotel vibe because you’d like to work from coffee shops where again, there’s a lot of people around or maybe you like a quiet house that you can rent on Airbnb or rent from anywhere and you like to have more space to really sprawl out and get comfortable and get cozy. So what where do you really find yourself feeling the most inspired and when you’re able to kind of take some time to reflect done that you’re going to have a lot easier of a time moving forward with the logistics of like, where to book, I would also challenge you here to think not necessarily about where you like to vacation, I want to make sure that you’re differentiating like, vacation mode and vacation vibes with, you know, motivational and inspirational vibes. So like, I really enjoy staying in hotels when I’m on vacation. But I prefer to rent like a cozy little house for when I’m on a working retreat. I’m not sure exactly why that is, I’d probably have to do a little bit deeper of a digging, kind of reflective situation for myself to figure that out. But I think off the top of my head, I think it’s because when I’m on vacation, I don’t like to spend a lot of time like in my room, I want to go out and explore and really like soak up my surroundings. Whereas when I’m on a working retreat, maybe I want to leave when I want to leave, like I want to go grab a bite or go to a coffee shop or whatever. But I’m not really choosing the place in order to explore, I’m choosing the place in order to explore what’s in my own mind, and then create something that’s going to benefit my business out of it. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of an example of how to kind of reflect on where you want to work. The second thing that you’re going to want to do is you’re going to want to reflect and I know I say reflect all the time, I know I’m constantly pushing you to kind of question your processes and question your motivators. But I think that that’s really important in the house.

So tangent, but bear with me, reflect on how you process best. And when I say process best, I mean, specifically with people or without people present. Now this is so different person to person. For me, I love to process outwardly, I love to talk things out, clearly I have a podcast, I really enjoy talking. And I like to talk to people. And I really like to have conversations. For me that sparks a lot of creativity. And that sparks a lot of back and forth. And I like to be challenged on my ideas. And I like to be pushed outside of whatever I think might be best I like to get other people’s input into like, think through, you know, like, Is this really a great idea? Or is it just something I think is a great idea. That’s something that I enjoy. However, not everybody’s like that some

people are like, I do not, I cannot handle other people’s opinions, it’s too much for me, it makes it to where I can’t decide on anything. And I really know what I want to do. I just need that dedicated time and a new environment in order to do it. Like I don’t really want to talk it out with anybody, maybe I could talk it out with somebody at the end of the day, but like, I do not want to have a ton of people giving me their opinions. So and I to clarify here, this doesn’t mean that you have to go on the trip alone or go with people. It’s just I think really important that if you do go with other people, you have clear parameters on what my days look like, like, are we going to be brainstorming together? Or are we just sharing a space, and we’re going to quietly work side by side. So that’s kind of a side note there. But again, I think the really big important step here is to take time to figure out like, how does your brain best take information? Do you need opinions of others? And by need, I guess? I mean, do you enjoy hearing the opinions of others? Or would you rather just put your head down, get to work, and then maybe talk about later, maybe not. So having that clear idea is really going to help you when you’re planning out your working retreat. So that again leads me to inviting people. Now for me, I’ve got to have a couple of people with me one, I mean, honestly, it could be one other person, it could be three other people.

Anything more than like four people, for me is too many people on a working retreat. Now this is very different than like a retreat that’s specifically tailored for like a larger group of people or a mastermind retreat, like I’m part of a mastermind, and I run a mastermind and those could have anywhere from like four to 15 people and that doesn’t bother me. But a working retreat where I’m really dedicating time to creating and like crafting a new offer a new idea, or implementing a new idea into you know, like taking it from idea to fruition. I want to have just a couple of people around me. And I really value that push back. So I choose those people very intentionally. Again, this is kind of tricky, but it’s similar to how I encourage you to kind of step outside thinking about your vacation, ideal vacation to thinking about the ideal type of space that you work best in. You might want to go on a trip with a lot of friends who you love and adore. But maybe you know, like, Okay, this business friend of mine could really push me and like won’t hold back and that’s going to help me a lot so I’m going to invite them and then this business friend of mine, maybe like they’re in a similar season, and they could probably use a little bit of that and we could like play off Have each other and so I’m going to invite them.

So really thinking through like, this is not necessarily like a party, it’s not a vacation. It’s not about inviting everybody who you know in love, it’s about being really intentional about choosing people who are going to help you reach your end goals. So hopefully that helps. The third factor I want to talk about in the how to kind of plan this working retreat kind of goes in line with the end of the second one, which is goal setting. What I like to do, and again, everybody’s different, maybe you need a lot more structure in your goals. But I like to create a very loose structure, I do like to include a couple of clear cut goals. But even then, I like to hold those goals with an open mind that they may change and evolve. Because like I mentioned, I enjoy the pushback of talking it through with somebody else. And if they say something that maybe sparks a different idea, I don’t want to limit myself to not be able to explore that idea.

I think a working retreat is the perfect dedicated time to explore new concepts in your mind and in your business. And to not feel tied down to like the one goal you went there to achieve. I’ve done that several times. Ironically, I think it was like two years ago, I went on a working retreat with one other friend. And we were talking about this concept that I was I was working toward I had a project in mind, I knew what I wanted to do. And through conversation, I ended up literally taking it a complete opposite direction. And I launched my first mastermind that day, like I built the web page. And I launched it that day, because I got super excited and like my mind just filled with ideas. And I thought this is what people need, what I had in mind is not really what they need in order to succeed. And it’s not the best way for me to help them succeed. And so that’s just an example of what can happen if you show up with that loose structure with maybe a few clear cut goals. But you’re really holding some space for yourself that you can change and evolve based on where the working retreat takes you.

So I know that sounds a little bit like woowoo, like I don’t know, but I think it’s really fun when you can do that. Because we I don’t know about you guys, but like, I can’t do that in my day to day life. Like I am pretty structured, I’ve got really clear cut schedules, like I know what I’m doing, I’m working through my work on a daily basis. And I don’t hold a ton of space and time to be able to like be like, Oh, here’s a new idea, I’m going to explore it for the next 12 hours. But on a working retreat, that’s the beauty of it, you really can. So hopefully that helps you guys kind of figure out the why see if it sounds interesting to you.

Again, though, the three factors I went over for the why we’re having that dedicated time away, trying out a new environment that sparks some inspiration. And then like relieving that pressure of your day to day life. And then I really hope the how helps you kind of pre plan what those days are going to look like. So deciding on the type of space you thrive in, or flexing on if you process best with people or without people and then kind of talking through who you could be considering taking along with you on the journey. And then of course, last but not least, just walking in with that loose structure with a lot of freedom and with an open mind that the goals you walk in with may look different than the goals that you walk out with. So I really hope that this sparks some kind of interest for you. And if it does that you follow through and maybe go grab a hotel room or rent to Airbnb, talk with your biz besties. Or maybe go it alone, have a solo trip if you’ve never tried it. And I really also would love to encourage you like if you do this once and you’re like this is not the vibe. Try it again.

And I know that’s a big ask, I really do. I’m asking you to take some time away from your business. I’m asking you to take, you know, invest your money and your time in this process. And if it doesn’t go well, I’m asking you to try again. But it’s because I’ve seen the rewards can be massive. And the outcome can be incredible if you actually give it a chance. And the first few times I did working retreats, they were okay, but they were not phenomenal. Now these last few have probably been my most lucrative because I feel like I’ve really tailored down who I need to invite and where I need to go and the type of space I need to create in order to thrive. So that’s my encouragement to you. If you try it, let me know, tag me on Instagram at any time at Layli underscore Emadi or send me an email I just I love to hear from you guys.

And I love to know if this content is being helpful to you. Now I have one more favor to ask of you. If you do have a biz bestie and you think they could really benefit from doing something like this? Or even you think that they might be able to benefit from the content that I share on the show? Just send them the link to this episode because I absolutely love when I’m able to see friends sharing great content with other friends and then maybe the Have you could go off on your work retreat together? Aren’t you guys I am cheering you on and I will catch you on the next episode.

For show notes and resources mentioned on today’s episode head to so here’s the thing podcast.com This show is brought to you by the creative educator Academy, where we teach creative entrepreneurs how to teach, because I believe that industries thrive when experts can share their knowledge. Well, if you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d love to read your review in iTunes or see your rating on Spotify. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.