A good friend once gave me a book entitled, “I Feel Guilty When I Relax.” Can you identify? I’m about seven days into our two week, no wireless/cell phone holiday from work, and here are some things I’ve noticed about myself:
- I feel fine when we leave home, but when we arrive here, I’m dog tired. I nap after dinner and sleep late (neither of which I can ever do at home, even if I want to).
- ‘Trickle charging’ starts to happen. A one-weekend ‘jump start’ is good, but it’s not as enduring and deep as a good long trickle charge.
- Family relationships get stronger. I’ve gone for many walks with my wife, my two youngest kids are learning to parallel park with a golf cart, we’re building an extremely complicated Lego truck together, we’ve floated down the Shuswap River, kayaked, had long boat days, campfires, played catch, watched Gilligan’s Island (Gilligan should have been imprisoned or possibly executed for everyone else’s good), made s’mores and… the list goes on and on
- I start to miss work. Time off reminds me that I have a purpose that needs to be fulfilled when I get home.
A wise business founder that I know insisted that his key managers take off two weeks in a row. If the wheels fell off during that time, it showed that they needed to strengthen their delegation skills and deepen their bench.
So, take your holiday from work without guilt and enjoy the summer!