In a recent AMA, I received a really interesting question:
“Advice on unplugging when on vacation with your family”
I thought a lot about it. A lot.
I came to this conclusion: completely unplugging is virtually impossible. Mrs. RCS and I are parents, and both work highly demanding, intense jobs. We both carry a lot of personal and professional responsibility and accountability, so the idea of disappearing for a week isn’t based on reality. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of completely unplugging. I have friends who have done the Alaska fishing trips where they are armed with nothing but a SAT phone…but those trips happened before any of them had kids. Not to mention that available technology makes it very easy to stay connected – even casually.
For me, the weight of returning to the office the following Monday without any knowledge/updates on what happened over the last week is too heavy to accept. I don’t care about societal ‘pressure’ or any pearl-clutching from those that feel the need to judge. It would be difficult for me to care less. I do what is best for me and my family. And a stressed-out me is not something my family enjoys.
Acceptance is the key here. Understanding that work has to be done on a vacation is a reality, so planning accordingly is a requirement. It makes that focused vacation time much more enjoyable. What I do is this:
- Starting a couple of weeks before I’m scheduled to be out, I review all the meetings on my calendar. Push/Cancel all those that I can.
- For the meetings that I’m an attendee (not presenting/the decision maker), have someone on my staff or a peer cover for me. Typically anyone that would do that for me at the office has permission to text me if anything gets hot.
- For those ‘can’t miss’ meetings where I’m a decision maker: I talk to my boss about it. I’m all about a ‘pure’ vacation, but there are scenarios where it would be worse to miss the meeting vs. missing an hour with my family.
- I’m honest with my co-workers that I’m on vacation, but attending the meeting anyway. More so to say ‘don’t bother me otherwise’.
On our last vacation, Mrs. RCS and I both had a couple of calls that we had to attend, which we did. We worked it out with each other so that we had privacy (took the kids to the pool or out for ice cream/tattoos), and covered for the other. We both had follow-up work to do, which we tackled either early morning or when the other could cover.
All in all, I probably put in 4 hours’ worth of work, and Mrs. RCS put in about 5 hours over the course of a week. Neither of us felt any guilt because the other wouldn’t let it happen. The cost of that was extremely low vs. the implications of not attending, stressing about it, and coming back to a ‘catch up’ scenario.
This is what works for us.
Excellent post, and words to live by: acceptance is key. Thanks for sharing!
Very well put. I am in a corporate sales role so anything I miss could directly impact my livelihood. Similar strategy here, attend meetings that are necessary and cancel/push others. I’ll monitor my email sporadically so I don’t come back to hundreds of unread messages that would be looming over my head.
I take a very similar approach when on vacation. I attend the meetings I need to. The important thing is to have a person you trust covering you while you are out. The other thing I do that helps me stay sane is to keep my inbox clean. I will mark as read any email that doesn’t require attention, flag those I need to follow up on, and respond to those that are urgent. During a normal vacation week I would likely end up working around the same amount of time as JRS. The best part is that I come back to the office with little stress.
I recently started a new job that is 100% remote. The goal, once I get my feet under me is to go on more long term vacations where the family can enjoy the sites and I will end up working more of a traditional schedule, but from a foreign locale.
Totally agree with you about it not being worth it to come back blind after vacay. I work remote and have young kids that still nap, so my approach is play with the kids in the morning then work in the afternoon while they nap.
Glad I am not the only one who has come to this conclusion. My wife is not employed (we are fortunate that my job allows her that luxury, though I’d be kidding myself to say that being the primary caregiver of three young kids is not a full-time job). She is, thankfully, understanding that I have obligations to my staff and my partners that require me to be available. It’s a bit harder to explain to the kids, but my oldest seems to somewhat get it at this point. It took a good ten years of practicing tax law for a group of very wealthy and demanding clients for me to accept that fully unplugging just isn’t an option and that a healthy balance is required when on vacation. That acceptance has made it much easier to actually enjoy vacation notwithstanding a bit of work here and there. Great post.
Fellow tax attorney here and I agree wholeheartedly. Just the nature of the beast that this profession doesn’t always lend itself to pure “PTO” like some others may. So if a goal of vacation is reducing stress, you just have to decide whether (1) totally unplugging, or (2) checking in periodically to keep the ship on course will result in lower net stress. There can be a time and place for both, although the former requires more planning on the front-end and consideration to timing.
One thing I like to do to buy a little more peace of mind when it is feasible is to turn email notifications off on my phone. That way, instead of the constant push notifications, I can at least actively choose when I want to open my inbox to check in on things, and assume that any actual timely emergencies will warrant a phone call instead.
I spent my first ~4 years as a tax attorney. Who knew we’d run this deep at Team RCS!
Good comment on the email notifications. I finally started doing this and essentially turned off all notifications during the day other than from my wife and a few close friends after reading “Stolen Focus” earlier this year. It’s made a big difference. And, like you said, if it is that important, someone will pick up the phone.
I took it a step further and removed my work email completely from my phone. Blood pressure went down and screen time went way down. Now I can be more intentional for that 30-60 minutes each day on vacation that I check my email on my laptop. That being said, nothing in my field is “respond within 2 – 3 hours” urgent, so I can afford to miss a few emails.
I try to take a few minutes a handful of times a day to clean up any urgent/important or quick reply emails. Since my son was born I’ve become better at punting anything that doesn’t fit the above criteria to when I’m back in office. Spent better part of a week off grid in Utah/Colorado/New Mexico with just a Garmin inReach several years (and rungs down on the org chart) ago. Would highly recommend if you get the chance for a true unplugged experience
Great article and I share similar feelings about by unplugging. Something I still struggle with: to put or not put an OOO reply on my Outlook email? Sometimes I think letting all my clients/prospects know I’m OOO is not helpful, but I’m in sales so I’m a little paranoid.
If you want the nice trips and nice things, sometimes that means working a few hours on vacation.
Interesting and timely post, thank you! I’m earlier in my career as a corporate lawyer at a large firm, and just beginning to learn this lesson for myself. As someone who has always enjoyed the wilderness, I’ve been missing those experiences. However, I’m learning that having the ability to reach work, or be reached by my colleagues in an emergency, is less stressful than wondering if something is blowing up with out me or if the partners will be frustrated on my return. The solution I’ve come to is laying the groundwork weeks in advance, finding other associates to cover, and then checking email periodically so I don’t need to wonder or worry. Completely unplugging is not a reality in my job, but advocating for your time off, cultivating relationships with peers who cover for each other, and actually taking the time off is possible.
Kudos to you. In my time as a corporate lawyer at a large firm I was woefully unsuccessful at unplugging, ever taking time off, or being in the wilderness. The wheels of M&A always seemed in motion and the billable hour expectations never withered.
I don’t want to oversell it—vacations are paid for in some dark months with a lot of hours. But it helps that I’m not in a major market and my firm is better than most at work life balance (though things are getting worse, I guess that’s the way of the world). I hope you’ve found something that works better!
Thanks and good to hear! In-house (at the right time) was the right temp porridge for me.
Was on Vacation last week. Knew a Manager always wants/needs a report the first week of the month so I made sure to login an get it to them. Just easier then dealing with the rush to get it done the second I am officially back from PTO. Was also waiting on some feedback/updates on a few projects that I have to hit the ground running on this week so I checked my emails every morning to make sure I was up to date on everything and checked in with my boss.
Nothing is worse then coming back to 300+ emails to sort through so I would rather stay on top of it when every time permitted then deal with the stress and questions when PTO was over.
Very realistic concept and approach to handling it. I know once during the week, maybe mid-week I will clear out my Inbox so I don’t have a pile of emails to weed thru.
Interesting and timely since I’m just wrapping up a 2 week vacation. . I lead a group at a Fortune 15 org and post-pandémica we actively discourage working while on vacation. We also don’t allow any company devices to leave the US unless traveling for work internationally so that makes it easier. I used to dread coming back to a bunch of emails but I’ve found that a quick couple of calls with my direct reports and a quick chat with my peer and I’m 95% up to speed by mid-day on the first day back. Another trick I’ve learned is to pad one extra day on my calendar and my out of office email, so I’m not inundated on day 1.
Agree. As a C suite member in a large nonprofit, staying in touch shows respect to others. Working too much shows disrespect to the wife. A balance that keeps me in touch but unplugged both. A great assistant know when to contact me. Fabulous direct reports manage well without me. The key to freedom is being in charge of when I check in. Never checking in is a sign of being too checked out.