Inner Work Space: Reflective Tools & Practices to Support the Self at Work

In workplaces, especially those that are traditional and hierarchical, the ideas of teamwork, collaboration, communication, trust, and safety have become

corporate buzzwords. But what do we need as individuals to make these things come true in our work lives? How can we collectively create work environments that foster these ideals? My intention with this thesis project was to explore ways to support the self at work, starting at the base unit of a workplace community, the individual, and to propose methods and resources for individuals to practice self-reflection in the workplace. Through the course of this project, I investigated theories and frameworks related to the self, reflection, and the workplace and applied them to prototypes that served both as generative research methods and designs to evaluate. The methods devised and prototypes designed drew on ideas from psychology,

sociology, business, spirituality, and other fields related to personal and professional growth. The outcome of this thesis is a system of tools called Inner Work Space

that supports reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action, and reflection-for-action. Ultimately, I aim for Inner Work Space to meet individuals where they are with accessible tools that assist them in the moment of need and beyond and to

use myself as probes to continue to explore this space and expand on the contributions of this thesis project.