I just got back from a week-long vacation. I use the term “vacation” loosely because this one involved a 12-hour drive to western Kentucky (my roots!) and my 17-month-old son. You get the picture.
If you’re like me, it’s hard to leave work behind on vacations. We read articles and hear about people who literally turn off their phones and completely shut down. They rave about how refreshing the time is and how rejuvenated they feel once returning.
It all sounds good – even makes good sense – but we can never let it go. So we mix the idea of “vacation” and “work from home.” It kinda sucks.
God intervened this last week for me, though. He somehow graciously allowed for me to knock my glass of water over during the night a couple nights prior to vacation, which doused my iPhone. I quickly dried if off and thought nothing more of it. To my dismay, I noticed my phone was not charging or syncing at all the day before we left for Kentucky. Essentially, the connection had rusted. No phone for Brett.
After breathing into a paper sack for five minutes, I regrouped and realized I still had enough juice left to leave a message to call my wife’s phone. Part of my soul actually smiled a bit at the thought of no phone for a week.
But the good Lord didn’t stop there. Once I arrived in Hoptown, yet another oddity struck me. Though I could read work emails, I couldn’t reply. Have no idea why, but that pretty much worked out OK, too. So except for emails from two people, I didn’t check work email at all.
Let me tell you something: this whole bit about truly letting the office go on vacation really works. After a couple days, my mind really relaxed. I enjoyed the down time, my family, my hometown and its slow pace and my crazy son running all over the place.
And now that I’m back in the office, I’ve also realized just how unimportant I am. Which is refreshing.
We have to make room for breathers. Hit the pause button. Reset. With summer on us, I can only hope you have the good fortunes of ruined cell phones and email gremlins during your next vacation. So it can truly be a vacation.
So how do you let the office go when you’re taking time off?
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