Month: July 2020

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Vacation Like A Boss

A step by step guide to going on vacation and not freaking out.

Take your damn vacation already. If you’re employed and they’ve given you vacation time, take it. Believe me, the people who don’t have paid time off would be happy to have yours.

Now, how you prepare to go on vacation is up to you. Worrying for a full week about the work you won’t be doing, and the amount of emails that will be in your inbox when you get back, is one way to do it. Logging in continuously and then feeling sorry for yourself about having to do so, while blaming your company, boss, current housing situation or the guy next door is another way. Last but not least, go out on vacation and then overwork yourself trying to do two weeks of work in a week. That’s fun, too.

This year, try something new. The Friday of the week before you go out, block out an hour on your calendar. Turn off all notifications, sit for ten minutes and list out everything you need to have in order to actually leave on time, come back and know that other than your inbox, everything is under control. Write it all down. When you run out of thoughts, ask your brain for five more. Do that a couple of times. You’ll know you’re at the end when your brain starts handing you drivel.

Now, take that list and label the items A (must be done before I go) B(Must be done but could wait until I’m back) and C (Get real, I could go my whole life without doing this).

Label all the A’s by priority – A1, A2 etc.

Now, look at your calendar for the following week, the week prior to vacation. Put in your lunch hour. Put in your email time. Put in a couple spots for last minute meetings and put in a spot every day for the unplanned.

Go to the week of vacation. Delegate or decline everything you can. Reschedule what you absolutely can’t delegate or decline.

Go to the week after vacation. Look at what’s scheduled. Is there anything you’ll need to do before you go out to get ready for that? Write it on your list, mark it A,B,C and give it a priority if it’s an A.

Now, go back to the week before you go out. Add in everything, starting with A1, until you run out of time. Don’t overcommit. You’re not going to work sixteen hours a day to do this. DEAL with the reality of the time you have available.

This is going to happen anyway, so don’t lie to yourself. You could ignore this reality, but when the actual 24 hours comes around, you’re going to work on something, and the day will end no matter what. Wouldn’t you rather be doing the most important things?

We can’t escape the reality of the 24 hour day. Period.

Really work during this hour. lay it all out, get it as close to perfect as possible.

Follow your plan for one week. Then go on vacation, stay-cation whatever.

Here comes the critical part – honor your commitment to yourself. Turn off work, look around and remember what you love about not being at work. Really make this time as vibrant and wonderful as you can. Have a vacation if it kills you.

When you get back, do not let yourself fall into the mindset of overwhelm. Remind yourself that you have all the time you need to do the most important things.

Your colleagues are capable. The company can survive without you and that’s not a bad thing.

Sort your inbox by name. Delete all the emails “from” people or systems that you don’t need to answer.

Sort your inbox by subject. Keep only the top email. If they split the chain and kept the same subject, and they needed your input, they’ll reach out.

Now, plan your week the same way you did before you left and move on.

And that?

Is how you go out, come back, and stay even.

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Get up, Log off, Get Gone

Look, you gotta go now.

It’s the Summer of Covid-19. Are you still at your desk?

I used to be this woman. Minus the nice bathing suit and the toned legs. Yeah, minus all of it except the phone. That briefcase would have been my laptop and instead of a beach, I’d be chillin’ on the lanai at my mother’s in Florida, but the concepts the same.

We all know that it’s good for us to leave work at work. Not so easy, you say?

Here’s a few simple tips that have worked for my clients.

Dedicate Yourself To Leaving Work at Work.

1. Don’t wait to have time, to take time.

Clients who overwork tend to think they can’t sign up for that pottery class, can’t get that dog, can’t start that work out routine until they figure out how to leave on time. This is backward. One of the reasons you stay too late at your desk is that you don’t have a clear goal for what comes next. By clear goal, I don’t mean weeding the garden if that’s your least favorite chore. Trust me on this. Schedule the class. You’ll figure out how to get there.

2. When your boss tells you to go, take him at his word.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this. The employee is overwhelmed and can’t see the forest for the trees. Boss gets concerned. “Go home.” “Take your vacation.” “Leave early today.” Employee nods and gets back to work, telling himself that the boss is nuts, or that’s nice but I have too much work. People, your manager is trying to help you. Hopefully, he or she has been around the block and can see a forward that you can’t right now. Or maybe, like me, he just knows that you’ll work smarter and faster once your head isn’t full of cotton and misery. When the boss says go, go.

3. Understand that stopping your thought patterns takes practice.

Our brains like to do what we did yesterday. Why? Because we survived. There’s no super intuitive magic going on. You can’t stop thinking about work because you aren’t taking ownership of your brain. If you don’t guide it, then it’ll do what’s easy. What’s easy? Whatever it just did. So now that you’re on vacation, now that you left your desk on time, don’t expect it to be roses. Now is the time you have to do some work for you. Now is the time you have practice directing your thoughts. It’s not fun – until it is.

4. Don’t expect there to be fun things to do unless you’ve planned them.

If you walk away from your desk and find yourself standing in the kitchen with a strong desire to refill your coffee cup and head back into your office, then just turn to your plan.

What? You don’t have one? We’re right back at item #1 again. Plan something fun. Just last week, I sat down with my coach and she made me construct a list of things to do in the evening. Things that feel good, don’t require food and aren’t about productivity or work. Brilliant. So, now? I’m heading out for my walk. Plan something good and enjoy your time off.

And that? Is just a great thing to figure out.