Time to Disconnect: 5 Ways You Can Avoid Being Disturbed on Vacation
What’s the point of leaving town and going somewhere that’s supposed to be relaxing if you are constantly fielding emails and phone calls? It’s tough to disconnect from many offices, but it can be absolutely necessary if you want to make sure that you’re refreshed and relaxed when you come back.
- Andy Hayes, the editor of Sharing Travel Experiences, says “Pick your battles — if you just can’t leave work behind, allocate specific amounts of time, tell your traveling partner(s) when you’re going to be online checking in, and stay true to your word.”
- Jonathan Mead, the blogger and coach behind Illuminated Mind, says “Make it hard to get sucked back in to work. Leave your phone, or remove all the apps that you normally use for work and social media. Leave your laptop at home. If you’re going with someone else, make an agreement that you’re not going to do any work to hold each other accountable.”
- John Soares, who writes about productivity at Productive Writers, says, “The best way to disconnect from work while you’re on vacation: turn off your cell phone and only go on the Internet when you really, really need to; couple that with a message on your work phone and your work e-mail vacation response that states you’re on vacation and will deal with all work-related matters on the day after your vacation ends.”
- Cal Evans, the founder of Day Camp 4 Developers, says, “In October of 2010, Kathy and I went to Bonaire for a week of diving. It was wonderful because we were almost totally disconnected. Here’s some of what I learned. Step #0: Plan ahead. Make sure that you have someone that the people that rely on you can call in case of emergencies. If you work in a company, that means a co-worker. If you are freelance, that means having someone you trust who has root on all your servers or access to all your accounts and knows how to handle emergencies. Make SURE you tell your clients that you are out and give them this person’s contact information. Depending on your agreement with your helper, you may want to stress to your clients that this is extreme emergencies only. (e.g. new content to be published is not an emergency, site down is.). Step #1: Kill all the phones. We were out of the country so our phones did not work. We turned them off as we boarded the plane in Atlanta and did not turn them back on until we landed back in Atlanta. Step #2: Physically limit your access. The hotel we were staying at had an outdoor lobby. That lobby was the only place where we had wi-fi access. We had to go there, as none of the rooms had it. Once a day, I would lug my iPad up to the lobby to check email. I did not take my laptop, only my iPad. This limited what I could do. I could not fix servers. I could not fix code. At best I could forward an email to my helper. Honestly, I didn’t even do that much. None of the emails from my clients rose to the level of emergency. Step #3: Mentally check out. The biggest thing you can do is to mentally check out. You have to be of the mindset that you are helping your customers by staying disconnected, by refreshing your batteries, by switching off your “Give a damn”. If you go on vacation and spend the entire time answering emails and solving problems then it’s not a vacation, it’s just telecommuting. You are the biggest problem you have to solve when figuring out how to disconnect.
- Robert Allen, of Zircote.com, says, “Many people treat their email as a synchronous event throughout their lives; unfortunately this develops an unreasonable expectation of their colleagues; these colleagues begin expecting immediate response to emails and will even go so far as to call and inquire if the email has been read. I operate on the assumption that email is asynchronous. I have made it clear to my colleagues that I only read email two times a day (morning and evening) if the matter in question is more pressing that these slots will not accommodate, they should IM, call or get up and walk to my desk. This relates to vacations in the sense that once you have left the building there are clear boundaries and expectations from colleagues but also yourself; you have developed the “will-power” and habits required to properly un-plug for extended period of time. I sometimes feel people today have placed so much emphasis on inter-connectivity they often forget how to disconnect from technology but also each other.
How do you avoid being disturbed on vacation?
Image by Flickr user Ziv Turner
