I now am lucky enough to lead a new team and have a couple of members who just got back from time off and another about to embark. Our work is fast and furious so there’s been more checking in of slack, during time off, than I like to see and when I pointed that out someone mentioned how I seem to work on the weekends so there! They’re right so who the heck am I to suggest that someone unplug?

Time off in the USA is a weird thing. A quick search of “time off by country” in google is pretty depressing. Lots of countries have national legislation that mandates time off. The USA is snake-eyes across all of the columns, nada, nothing and zero. We’ve made lots of progress in terms of FMLA and Paternity/Maternity leave in many places but overall we’re a nation of workaholics. I’d go as far to say that’s one of the shared elements of our national identity. We will out-work and out-produce our competition.

There is, as always, a toll to pay however. Manoush Zomorodi wrote a book called Bored and Brilliant about how technology and social media’s consistent demands on our attention have perhaps stunted our creativity in some ways. Being bored can create the need for novelty and in the vacuum comes thoughts unbidden that can sprint into something more when they don’t have the constraints of a keyboard, touchscreen or a flicker of video. I think, done right, time off is like this too.

I have two favorite vacations that I’ve ever taken. Both of them were staycations, no special travel, location or event to tackle. Just a good old home sweet home. The first one was when my second daughter was born because when our first child came into the world I was worried about what would happen at work. I went back way too early and it was dumb. I didn’t magically accomplish anything by coming back and the reality was my mind was home anyways so I ended up just irritable and gloomy. That, on top of not sleeping due to NEWBORN made Billy a great guy to be around and my wife sure loved it! When our second was born I took a full month off. By then our oldest was three and being more experienced I could settle into the routine of caring for her, her little sister and helping her Mom recover and I unplugged. No email, no computer no phone calls. I also had a wonderful group of co-workers at the time who brought me “Cassarol-a-rama” so that the Dad-who-doesn’t-cook-much could survive the initial weeks without starving the family.

It turns out newborns, their Mom’s and their three year old sister’s need a lot of sleep so my lack of sleep was soothed by several hours of joint-nap-time during the day. Some days I partook with them until someone needed something and other days I would read. It was early spring and the blossoms were on our ornamental cherry trees and the neighbor’s apples. I remember sitting outside in one of the first warmer days of the year in early spring on the back lawn, reading and thinking about our garden, when the breeze blew long and steady enough to sweep a thousand flower petals of pink and white through our courtyard and in a great circle over our backyard. I can still feel that moment. The astonishment at something so randomly lovely, the gentle contented measured pace of my mind from reading a fresh new book and the overwhelming glow of knowing our young family was settled, safe and sound.

My other favorite time off was a three week vacation I took one August after a particularly difficult run at work. That time I needed my brain to be elsewhere and so it was. I remodeled a room into a studio and tore out a bunch of old carpet and felt the good tired. The one where your muscles are heavy but not sore (usually) and the mind is here and not there because swinging a hammer takes attention. I went fishing several times and the metronomic swing of my fly-rod brought me more steelhead than any other season fishing for them. The fishing was hot enough I went back for more one evening, not having to be anywhere particular in the morning and I came home with a nine pound buck. By the third week I had been unplugged so long I was ready to go back. I took one phone call to learn I would have a new boss when I returned and started one of the best stretches of work in my career.

Saturday and Sunday mornings my girls will all be asleep sometimes and I’ll get up before them (sleeping in for me though), shower and eat some fried eggs and then read my team’s status reports and send along questions. So then why would I, who contemplates so clearly the benefit of time off, get caught working on weekends? Probably because I’m a workaholic too. Where is the 12 step program? I need that I guess.

The time has come though to feel the good tired again. To go fishing someplace new and feel the tug of a bite. To sit in my backyard and let something amazing happen or even just nothing while my brain simmers and ferments until something new appears. I probably won’t stop being a workaholic, at least for now. But when the time comes for me to be gone I’ll be GONE, in part because I have a great team who will have my back. I will ALSO not stop encouraging my teammates to do the same when they are on PTO but maybe, just maybe, I’ll be more understanding about when they still feel the pull of the work.

FISH