Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to handle work on vacation. Theoretically,
Speaker 1: this is a straightforward matter. If you're an employee at
Speaker 1: an organization, you are entitled to your paid time off.
Speaker 1: When you take it, you should be off set your
Speaker 1: out of office email and trade off coverage with a
Speaker 1: colleague or two. Especially if you are flirting with burnout,
Speaker 1: it is incredibly important to disconnect for a while and
Speaker 1: experience some days without work stress. Trust me, your work
Speaker 1: stress will still be there waiting for you when you
Speaker 1: get back. So the point of a vacation is to
Speaker 1: get yourself to a place where you are better able
Speaker 1: to deal with it. But for many of us, the
Speaker 1: question of working on vacation is more complicated. For instance,
Speaker 1: maybe you work for yourself, Maybe you run a small business.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're a partner in a firm and share ownership.
Speaker 1: No one is making you work during your time off.
Speaker 1: It's just that there are certain things you are responsible
Speaker 1: for and you want to make sure that they keep happening.
Speaker 1: It's also possible that you really like your job and
Speaker 1: some of the work doesn't actually seem like work, or
Speaker 1: at least the categories are nebulous. I put myself in
Speaker 1: this latter group. My main work consists of writing books,
Speaker 1: giving speeches, and producing my podcasts, but I do various
Speaker 1: other things, such as write blog posts over at Laura
Speaker 1: Vanderkam dot com to keep people interested in my ideas
Speaker 1: and my work. If I'm on vacation, I might write
Speaker 1: a blog post about being on vacation. For me, this
Speaker 1: is work, but I think most people wouldn't consider writing
Speaker 1: a post about their vacation to be a professional activity.
Speaker 1: In any case, For me, being able to do some
Speaker 1: work on vacation means I can take more vacation. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, I spent six weeks traveling somewhere for non
Speaker 1: work related reasons. But during each of those weeks, I
Speaker 1: averaged about five hours of work. If I'd held myself
Speaker 1: to zero hours of work, I would never have taken
Speaker 1: those six weeks off. So if this sounds like you,
Speaker 1: how can you handle work on vacation without feeling like
Speaker 1: you're still well working all the time. For me, it
Speaker 1: works best to designate a time for work. So when
Speaker 1: my family spent a week at the beach. Last summer,
Speaker 1: the kids and I came to an agreement that we
Speaker 1: would go to the beach to gather in the morning
Speaker 1: and come home for lunch. I'd work from about one
Speaker 1: to three pm while they watched movies, read or played
Speaker 1: video games. Then we can go back to the beach
Speaker 1: or go to a playground or whatever else in the
Speaker 1: late afternoon before dinner. This turned out to be a
Speaker 1: good rhythm for giving everyone some downtime. I just used
Speaker 1: my downtime to work. Midday is good if you're staying
Speaker 1: in one place, but if you're traveling around and sight seeing,
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning might be a better option.
Speaker 1: Get up an hour before the rest of your family
Speaker 1: and deal with whatever you need to during this time.
Speaker 1: And then this is key, do not constantly be available
Speaker 1: the rest of the time. By forcing yourself to stick
Speaker 1: with a short window whatever you've determined that to be,
Speaker 1: you prioritize what must happen, even if you do some
Speaker 1: work on vacation. One of the upsides of vacation is
Speaker 1: giving your brain space to just flit around to other things.
Speaker 1: I find that letting it play around often leads me
Speaker 1: to come up with good ideas that I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: come up with if I was on email all day long.
Speaker 1: If you do work on vacation, how do you fit
Speaker 1: it in without driving your fellow vacation or is crazy?
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about it at Before Breakfast podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeart Media dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. M Hey everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four, then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.