Laura Stack* says trying to keep in touch with work during your vacation is bad for you, those you holiday with — and those you leave behind at the office.
Let’s face it: A vacation where you spend any time at all working is not a vacation.
Yet, working vacations have become a fixture of our workaholic society.
Most of us feel obliged to at least check in occasionally even though, according to one recent survey, 47 per cent of workers don’t even use all their annual vacation time.
Sadly, many of us are “encouraged” or outright told to keep in touch during our vacations.
Others feel an unstated pressure to do so, while some don’t want to seem like slackers.
They don’t want their teams to realise they can do without them, or they worry things will fall apart while they’re gone.
Some even know they’ll come back to a mess, because it’s happened before.
Others fear the pile of work and the game of ‘catch-up’ they’ll have to face if they leave for even a couple of weeks.
However, your personal and team productivity may fall apart if you don’t stay away while on vacation.
Consider just a few things that can happen:
Emailing from vacation can irritate people: You seem like you’re too disorganised to prepare properly for your time away.
Or your team will think you think it can’t do the job without you.
Team members surely don’t want to hear from you while they’re stuck in the office.
Besides, if you work during your vacation, everyone else may think they’re expected to as well. Let them be and let yourself go.
It undermines the very reason for vacationing: Vacations are intended for rest and recuperation.
They offer a period when you need not work or even worry about working.
You also have the opportunity to do things you don’t normally do.
If you can’t rest and have fun on vacation, what’s the point?
Many people try to slip in work tasks between fun; but when you do, you end up exhausted.
Something’s gonna give, and it’s probably gonna be you.
You can’t recharge: How can you go back to work rested and ready if you never stop working?
Only complete disengagement gives you the full benefit of a break.
With a workcation, every time you try to disengage from work and its worries, whoops, there it is again.
You’re better off avoiding work entirely, so you have a chance to look forward to it again — and hit the ground running when you get back.
It may limit your vacation options: If you or your manager fears you might have to rush back to the office, are you more likely to go to Bali or just the nearest beach?
I read about a couple who could have afforded to fly to Paris but instead took a holiday within a two-hour car ride of their business.
They just could not stop worrying that their business might be falling apart without them, even though the staff was handling things just fine.
You’re a huge drag on anyone vacationing with you: When you’re working half the time, you slow everybody down or make them wait.
Or you simply miss out on all fun they have instead of waiting around for you.
It just changes the pace and your behaviour.
If you’re going to workcation, do it alone, but what vacation is fun when you go it alone?
The whole point of a vacation is to completely disengage from work, so that by the time you return, your slate has been wiped clean of all the clutter of daily worry and hassle.
This lets you view your ongoing projects with a fresh perspective when you return.
It may even shake loose new ideas.
Meanwhile, you recharge your creative and enthusiasm batteries.
By the time you go back to work, you may even be looking forward to it.
None of these can happen if you keep working during your vacation.
*Laura Stack is an award-winning keynote speaker and authority on productivity and performance. She can be contacted at www.theproductivitypro.com/blog
This article first appeared on Laura’s blogsite.
