Take A Vacation: It’s Time To Recharge Your Batteries
Taking a vacation is good for you, its good for your family and it turns out its good for your organization!
The Shared Care Parents and ThirdPath Leaders we’ve worked with, have taught us that disengaging from work while taking a vacation can improve our effectiveness at work and increase the skills we need to find a more satisfying approach to work and life.
However – some of us might need to challenge a few work norms to make this happen: the fear of being perceived as an under performer; the pressure to see it as a win-lose proposition – either we meet our client and customer needs or our own personal needs; or the worry that maybe there’s no point to take a week off given the demands to be available while away and the difficulty transitioning back upon return.
But there’s a lot to gain when we push back at these norms.
Read on to learn the why and how of making vacations more possible, and the steps a young attorney used to put these ideas into action.
Vacation Benefits:
– Time off can have several health benefits like reducing risk of heart disease, stress and depression.
– Seeing new places (even if it’s only a short car ride away) and experiencing different things can have a positive effect on our overall outlook on life, providing a fresh and new perspective.
– Time away from work can also help remind us that work is just one part of who we are and reconnect us to friends, family and other life interests.
Try these ideas to increase the joy of your time away and benefits upon your return.
Vacation Check List:
- Plan vacations around the “seasonality” of your work. Try scheduling longer trips for less busy periods of work.
- Block off pre and post “quiet” workdays. Avoid scheduling meetings and phone calls the day before you leave and the day you return to allow for the “unexpected” and for catch up time.
- Create a “what can wait” list. A week before you go, create a list of things that you can wait to get done after vacation, versus tasks that must be completed before you go.
- Decide how “connected” you want to be. If you need to check email or voice messages, plan ahead around what’s least disruptive.
- Carefully define emergencies. Think ahead about what challenges could arise. Clearly define emergencies to avoid everything becoming one.
- Keep track of what worked well. Create a list you can refer back to of helpful ideas for planning your next vacation.
Do you work for an always-on workplace? Here’s how you too can take a vacation:
Andrew, an associate at a big law firm, was planning a vacation with his significant other. Before booking his vacation, Andrew reached out to Miranda and the other partners in his practice group letting them know when he was planning on taking a vacation and whether they saw any significant roadblocks.
A few weeks before going on his vacation, Andrew formulated a list of tasks that would need to continue or be completed while he was on vacation and then reviewed this with Miranda.
A week before vacation, Andrew reached out to the other attorneys he works with and certain clients (first discussing this with Miranda) to let them know of his imminent vacation. He let them know how he would be reachable in case of emergencies. He also delegated to junior associates or completed all of the items on the list he created with Miranda.
The night before his vacation, Andrew created an out-of-office reminder that explained when he would be back in the office and the name and number of who to contact in case of emergencies.
During vacation, Andrew checked email for a few minutes every morning and evening. Most emails he could ignore, but some required prompt forwarding. In one instance, a client and supervising attorney emailed about setting up a time to meet to discuss a new matter. Andrew responded suggesting times the week of his return. Miranda also contacted him on his cell phone when she was in urgent need of a document she knew Andrew had.
Andrew had planned his vacation to end a day before his scheduled return to the office. When he arrived home, he had time to unpack, decompress from the trip and catch up on the emails he had set aside during vacation.
When Andrew got into the office the next day, he had a clear sense of what was most important to attend to and he was refreshed and ready to get back to work.
Andrew may have only been hoping for a little R&R but his approach also sharpened his ability to manage work in a 24/7 world. He strengthened his skills to plan and prioritize work, did relationship building and delegation to get out the door, made strategic use of technology to stay connected, and scheduled in quiet time as a way to stay focused on his highest priority work before and after his return.
These are great skills for succeeding in a world that has a constant stream of new demands. They are also great skills for taking time to recharge.
Want to learn more? Join our OMG 12-call series to help you develop 21st century work-life integration skills.