Last weekend, Alex and I travelled to a tiny community called Angsbaka in central Sweden to a conference/festival on living sustainably.

I was there to give a talk on how digital is changing the way we work and also to give a workshop on my programme Mindful at Work (which took place in a round strawbale house - lovely energy!).

The tagline of FuturePerfect was 'an adventure in living well' so I took as my starting point how we can 'work well' especially how digital can facilitate this.

Here in the UK, but increasingly in Sweden as well, the way we are working isn't working. We create lifestyles and behaviours for ourselves that are unsustainable for our planet and that don't make us happy in the long term. The price of maintaining a certain type of lifestyle is having to work long hours or stay in a job you hate but pays well.

“There is more to life than just increasing its speed.”   Mathatma Gandhi

A second issue is that when we are working, many of us are not working very effectively. We create mountains of busywork to keep us from doing our Great Work. Increasing emails, social media and our 24/7 connected culture through our mobile means that we never really switch off from work.

But instead of digital being part of the problem, I see its potential to be part of the solution.

With digital we can increasing choose who we work for and how we create value and meaning in our work. It's never been easier to use the social web to set up your own microbusiness - all the tools are free, you just need a good idea. A digital microbusiness can enable you to work on something you are passionate about rather then having to leave your values at the door when you go to work.

With digital we can choose where and when we work. With faster broadband speeds, cloud computing and communications technologies such as Skype, you can choose to work from any where you like - your front room, your local cafe or another country. You can downshift to the country without having to worry about finding work in rural communities or downshift in the city and work less.

With digital we can choose who to work and collaborate with. We can connect with people on the other side of the world and expand our market globally.

And this is only the beginning. The internet is barely 20 years old and we are only now starting to see some of it's potential.

The overall consensus at FuturePerfect was that by living sustainably we can actually live better and happier lives and I think that our working practices have a huge part to play in this. Everyone has to make a living somehow, but if more people can transition to having a freer and more flexible working life that creates value for others, then we are on the right track.

Digital can be a real enabler of this: an adventure in working well.