The importance of a vacation
I was recently interviewed for an article in AOL Jobs on taking breaks. You can read the full article here, or a related article (which I had nothing to do with), here.
The first article didn’t use everything I wrote, so here’s the full text, including the questions I was asked.
- Why is it so important from a performance perspective to log off and then return to work completely refreshed?
Let’s start by understanding how our brains work. We are built to tune out repetitive stimuli and focus on the novel. This isn’t all that surprising: most animals are built that way. It’s not the unchanging thing that is most likely to be a threat, it’s the thing that’s changed. Taking breaks allows us to view our work with new eyes instead of becoming bored and burned out.
Another piece of the puzzle is the way we make intuitive leaps. Archimedes didn’t have his “Eureka!” moment while he was staring at the problem. He had it when he took a break and went to the baths. Taking breaks enables the mental static to fade out and the creative and unexpected connections to pop up. Some of the recent work in neuroscience suggests that, although they’ve become encrusted with mystic gibberish, Zen Koans are designed to force the brain to essentially “take a break” from a problem it is stuck on.
- Is it helpful to perhaps check e-mails periodically on vacay for urgent matters to diminish anxiety and the workload upon return or is it better to be completely shut off?
I’m not sure that there’s a one-size-fits-all answer to this. There are some things to recognize though: our brains are built to remember uncompleted tasks better than completed tasks. You might ask, “If that’s so, why do we forget so many tasks?” The answer is that we are usually trying to remember too many different tasks!
When we check our email during vacation, we run the risk of seeing a problem that we feel we have to address and can’t from where we are. At worst, that can blow the vacation out of the water. If nothing else, it can ruin the rest of the day, or several days, because we can’t get the problem out of our heads. If you are going to check email during a vacation, make sure you have an easy way of queuing anything important so that you’ll be reminded of it when you get back. That makes it much easier to forget about it during vacation without worrying that you won’t remember to deal with it.
I will observe that the people who have the most trouble unplugging during vacation are also the people who work for or lead teams that have significant other performance issues. If you feel that you must check email during vacation or your team won’t be able to get anything done, that’s not an email problem, that’s a team development problem. You need to fix it. Similarly, if you’re telling me that people on your team can’t take a vacation without so much work piling up that they either have to work from the beach or are overwhelmed the moment they return, that’s also not a vacation problem. That’s either a team development problem, a leadership problem, or a scheduling/time management problem, possibly all three. Address those issues and you’ll be amazed how many of the other problems go away.
- What are two or three ways people can do this? For instance, one source told me to simply not bring the BlackBerry to the beach so you’re not tempted and in turn, you avoid losing the BlackBerry to sand damage.
Turning off the computer, putting the iPhone on airplane mode (so you can still listen to music), etc, are common techniques. I usually leave the computer off at least one day of every weekend. The real answer, though, is not technological, it’s personal: develop the habit of turning off. By turning off the computer one day of the weekend, I am practicing turning off under “controlled conditions.” When I went camping with my family earlier in the summer, I did bring the computer in case I wanted to write (I didn’t — never turned it on), and I put my iPhone in airplane mode. I took it out of airplane mode once to delete emails. Didn’t read anything, just deleted anything that was obviously unimportant.
It feels difficult at first to turn off. That’s why practicing is important.
- What are some benefits to logging off?
See above. Logging off helps increase motivation, productivity, and creativity. Let me add that the brain is a muscle. Like any exercise, it pays to change it up so we don’t get stuck in ineffective habits.
- In this digital age it makes it so tempting to remain connected but is it better or does it no matter if a vacation is a vacation is a vacation whether or not you take a long weekend that’s 100% work-free or a two week vacation whereby you periodically check in for messages?
It takes 7-10 days to really destress and start to relax. Staying connected can only slow that down. That said, if you can be disciplined about not getting sucked into your Blackberry and can control your time, checking for messages probably won’t do too much harm. Keep in mind, though, that once you show your co-workers that you’re available to help them during your vacation, you can count on them continuing to bug you. After all, by responding while on vacation, you’ve effectively given them permission.
- If there’s anything else you’d like to add as it relates to how to log off and why we need to, please feel free to add.
If you do check for messages, make sure you have a good calendaring service (e.g. iCal, GCal, followup.cc, etc) where you can quickly and easily schedule reminders for when you get back.
If you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night worrying about work or can’t get work problems out of your head, block out some “worry time” on your calendar. Give yourself 15 minutes, and move on. Once we’ve addressed an uncompleted task, even if merely by scheduling time to think about it, we can let it go.
