We all need a little recess in our lives. Any business book or tome on workplace productivity (I’ve read a number of them and like to blab about them here) will tell you the importance of working hard when you’re working, and playing when you’re not.

As such, Keen (the cool shoe brand) has been trying to bring back recess.

Today, they invited Twitter employees to step outside in San Francisco, pledge to put a bit more recess back in our lives, and raise money for Room to Read by doing so. It’s 2:30 pm and we’ve got thirty minutes left to get 100 more employees out the door to take the recess pledge. If we do so, Room to Read will get $5,000.

{Update: 400 employees came out and we raised the $5,000! Whoopeeee!}

But back to the concept of recess. Keen came up with the clever idea of asking people what “their recess was” or rather, what recess means to you. Then they took cute pictures. Or, relatively cute pictures, if you don’t consider the disheveled mess of a person (don’t get mad at me again, I’m allowed to make fun of my own ugly) standing in the above one.

What’s Your Recess?

When the Keen dude asked me what my recess was, I said “Kombucha.” Then, I took the terrible photo above, in which my side swiped mullet is competing with the glaring whiteness of my winter skin for worst dressed. Although the Keen dude tried to clarify the semantics of my answer… “Um, you mean your recess is buying kombucha…or your recess is drinking kombucha…?” I just left things as they were.

My recess is Kombucha.

Shoes!

Another cool Keen bonus? Keen gave us cute shoes, and Sammy will be thankful. Since this up and coming track star brilliantly forgot his running shoes at school this summer, he’s been running around California in black wool ankle high moccasins this week.

Looks like everything’s looking up, folks.

Looking up = Recess + Shoes + Literacy + Kombucha.