Walpole: In a world where we’re always available, how do you separate your personal time from your work time?
Stefano Arata: Nowadays, with so many channels of communication and time zones, there’s really no separation, so I take breaks and look at the world around me. I feed on observation and the unexpected.
What’s one thing you do after the workday to help you unwind?
Read, play, sing. I always look for good, sharp comedy and have recently re-watched both series of Flowers – you can’t beat a dark comedy.
What activity do you do in your time away from the office that helps you relax and recentre after a stressful week?
I go for a walk in the woods – there are so many around London, from Richmond Park to Welsh Harp in Brent to Epping Forest. Or I’ll meet old friends, go see a play or a film. I have a date to watch The Brutalist this Saturday.
What’s something you’ve read, listened to, or seen in your spare time that’s helped you at work?
It has to be Keats' 1819 poem Ode on a Grecian Urn: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all you know on earth, and all you need to know.”
After home and the office, where’s your favourite ‘third space’?
I don’t really have a fixed one. All of London, perhaps…? It’s a great city to walk about for hours and hours.
On Sunday night, how do you prepare yourself for the week ahead?
I take Mondays off – by then the world is in full gear, and you do not get that looming weight on a Sunday evening of the week ahead.
Best reason you've had to turn your Out of Office on recently?
Three weeks in Sicily with my wife, up the side of a mountain overlooking the sea and the Aeolian islands.
