The Ferris Bueller Protocol: Why Some of My Best Days Were Never on the Calendar
A while ago, I surprised my son Milo with a day off.
No big announcement.
No birthday.
Just… a day.
We got burgers in Camden.
Wandered the market.
Talked nonsense.
Laughed.
Then headed into town to see Back to the Future: The Musical - his first-ever theatre show.
Back when he was little, Back to the Future was one of the first films I showed him.
We’ve bonded over it for years.
Milo’s first comic book!
So to sit there, shoulder to shoulder, watching that story come to life on stage, hearing the opening notes kick in, watching his face light up when the DeLorean literally took off and hovered over the crowd…
I’ll never forget it.
Afterwards, we grabbed Humble Crumble, piping hot, crispy, messy, perfect — and wandered home.
It was, honestly, one of the best days we’ve had.
And it wasn’t a holiday.
Or a birthday.
Or something planned months in advance.
It was just a Ferris Bueller Day Off.
A day we took, on purpose.
Why we need days like this
Most people save their joy for the weekend.
Or for later.
Or for “when things calm down.”
But when you do that, life gets squeezed.
Not just practically, but emotionally.
The experiences you remember, the ones that shape your relationships, your creativity, your mindset, don’t always happen in the big moments.
They happen in the unplanned, the unscheduled, the day that could’ve been like any other… but wasn’t.
The Ferris Bueller Protocol isn’t about skipping responsibility.
It’s about choosing presence, deliberately.
Sometimes that means a whole day.
Sometimes it’s just an hour.
But in that time, you do something purely because you want to.
Not because it makes money.
Not because someone expects it.
But because it connects you, to joy, to people, to yourself.
This isn’t just about happiness, it’s about strategy
Most people don’t realise what they’re trading away by being constantly “on.”
The Ferris Bueller Protocol isn’t just good for the soul, it’s a creative edge.
When you take time to:
Explore
Think
Learn something new
Have new experiences
Or just rest properly
You actually get ahead.
Especially if you’re creative.
Because creativity comes from lived experience.
From the things you notice when you’re not rushing.
From the connections, you can’t make if you’re always scrolling, reacting, or catching up.
If you want to be someone with ideas worth listening to, you need time to become someone worth listening to.
Reclaiming time = reclaiming growth
Let’s say you’re a designer.
Imagine taking a few weeks to work inside one of the best agencies in the world — unpaid - just to absorb, learn, watch.
Most people can’t do that.
They’re tied to the 9–5.
Their time is spoken for.
But if you’ve built your life around Lifestyle Pricing - designing your income to protect your freedom - you can.
You could work 100 days a year, and spend 20 of those building skills and experiences that would take others years to catch up with.
That’s not downtime.
That’s career acceleration.
And the best part?
It’s fun.
It’s freeing.
It reminds you what you love about being alive and creative in the first place.
Start small
You don’t need to book flights to Paris.
You don’t need to clear your calendar.
You just need to start carving out time —
and choosing what you put into it.
Watch the film you’d normally skip.
Try the food you keep scrolling past.
Call a friend.
Visit an exhibition.
Go to a weird part of town.
Try something that might not work.
Start with an hour.
Then an afternoon.
Then maybe, one day… a full Bueller Day Off.
Final thought
I’ll remember that day with Milo forever.
Because it wasn’t “earned.”
It was taken. Chosen.
Protected.
And it’s not just a memory.
It’s a marker.
Of the kind of life I want to live more often.
That’s the quiet gift of Lifestyle Pricing:
You don’t wait for time. You make it. Then you decide what to do with it.
And that might be the most valuable thing you ever build.
Because in the words of the man himself,
“Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
