Milena Tasic Design

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Plan your sabbatical like a futurist

I leverage design thinking and strategic foresight to solve problems, both in my job and in my life outside of work. When it comes to the personal stuff, there is a delicate balance between when to use your design-thinking brain, and when it’s best to turn it off. I haven’t yet mastered this, but am learning that friends/family don’t necessarily LOVE doing design workshop activities as much as I do. I especially apologize for forcing a 2x2 matrix upon us when we couldn’t agree on which pizza to order - strategically mapping out pizza toppings on one axis and restaurants to order from on the other just made sense to me at the time! This is an example of when I should have turned the design thinking brain off.

On the other hand, using my design thinking brain when planning a sabbatical turned out to be a good thing. While I am not the first or last person to ever take a sabbatical, I can share some questions I asked myself and frameworks for getting the answers I was looking for. These considerations and tips might save you some time (or head/heartaches) if you’re looking to take off for a few months with purpose, be it an extended vacation, a sabbatical, or even taking the leap into a nomadic lifestyle.

Click through to the available links to read more :)


  1. Focus on your purpose.
    What do I want/need out of this? Why? Why now?

  2. Prioritize a location.
    Can I come up with a set of criteria or a list of ‘must-haves’?

  3. Figure out your finances.
    What can I afford? How might I come up with the money?

  4. Check-in with work.
    Does this impact anyone at my job? Who do I need to talk to?

  5. Find housing.
    Where am I going to live?

  6. Stay flexible & chill.
    What is the worst that can happen?


A bientot!

Milena