The Art of Unplugging
I’ve written before about the importance of vacations, the art of unplugging, and why it’s so effective for leaders to disengage from their companies each year. This past month, I really put this to the test: after nearly three years of little to no vacationing — thank you, pandemic — April was the month to get away. My husband and I were celebrating our 30th anniversary, and it was time to get the family together to celebrate and take our annual “gift of vacation,” especially since “annual” had come and gone three times. Our anniversary coincided with spring break, so we seized the moment to spring for the trip as we were taking school-aged grandkids along, too.
This trip lasted a good long time: 11 days of travel, followed by a four-day “staycation” upon return to unpack, open mail, do laundry, water plants, and otherwise open real life back up before heading into email, Zoom, and the demands of the job. It was wonderful.
It used to be a lot easier to unplug because you could get to places with no connectivity. Now, not so much, especially with 10 other people along for the ride and pretty much every place in the world now connected. Today, it takes real discipline to unplug. Here’s what I did:
- I took pictures but saved them for our return. I didn’t want to be on Instagram or any other social account while away.
- Despite my belief in a balanced information diet, I went on a news fast. I didn’t look at Associated Press, Apple News, Google News, or WSJ. Frankly, it was bliss.
- I didn’t look at email. Need I say more?
- I texted (rarely) a photo or two to a few close friends and my sister. I responded to one text from a close friend wishing me happy Easter. 😊
- I didn’t talk shop with anyone along for the trip who also works with our company (read husband and son).
- I slept great, I breathed better, I ate well. I relaxed.
I did this for the entire time — from the afternoon on April 6 when the car service picked us up until I returned to work on April 25 — save for one email to the team the Friday before I returned. Here’s what I learned:
- I was more tired than I thought. Even though I kept powering through, the reality was that I was leading during a pandemic, serving clients during a pandemic, overseeing our company’s digital transformation during a pandemic, moving out of our home of 27 years during a pandemic, nursing my husband back to health after unexpected open heart surgery during a pandemic, moving into a new house during a pandemic, and working with contractors and designers to make the house ours during a pandemic. Any one of those alone would be a killer on the stress-o-meter, and I was handling them all in a concentrated two-year period, without a vacation — during a pandemic.
- While I had always been somewhat religious about taking regular vacations and unplugging, this chunk of away time reminded me more than ever that time off is essential for any leader and any team operating in today’s world.
- It was great and healthy to let others run the company and deal with whatever came their way. I could see who dealt and who didn’t. I was shown what strengths emerged and where muscle in the company got a little flabby or needed to be built up.
Most of all, I was able to sit back and let others do the lifting, so I could come back rested and ready to think about new things. I gave myself the gift of white space for new ideas to emerge and with understanding of where I no longer needed to put my efforts.
Vacations are not just relaxing — they are clarifying. They provide much needed perspective and a reality check of where we need to be and what we need to do and where we are simply superfluous. We leaders too often get a self-important sense of where we are required. We get addicted to “busy.” Vacations are when we can be diligent about unplugging and creating white space for ourselves while our teams learn where we aren’t required and, more so, where we are in the way. When we do get out of other people’s way, it’s amazing what we learn about our talent, our companies, and most of all, ourselves.
As our world opens up, and we all take more vacations, please, please set an example and a) take one and b) simply unplug. It’s magic.