I Didn’t Do Vacation Right

I learned this lesson two years ago. Now, I don't go on a vacation unless I am sure there is no internet access and I make my husband custodian of my phone.

It feels good at first to feel wanted or needed at the office but all it ultimately does is burn you out.

AAAAAHHHHH!!! I have been preaching to others about this for years. The reason vacations don't work is ego. Here is what I heard you say you did. 1) Prepared a list of what to do when an emergency happens, 2) Spent a great deal of time cleaning off your desk of current projects and trying to get far enough ahead to avoid surprises, 3) Told your staff that you were available in case of a real emergency, 4) Did not decide that during your vacation, there were certain no go spots for your business. You have to 1) train your people to understand what the fix for an emergency needs to do and what they can use to do that, 2) educate your clients that because of your vacation, you will be delayed at least that many days in your contributions, 3) Tell your staff you trust them to do 1), and 4) lock your crackberry in a box in your hotel room on the important days at a minimum.

You need to balance yourself at least a little bit and accept that others will adapt to you. You are not asking them to let you freeload nor are they expecting you to do everything. Communicate you are going on an offline vacation, check your email on the last day to see what happened while you were out, and only respond once you are sure you know what the current situation is. I suspect that you have a really hard time delegating to others. Find out how to ask for help so you can get some personal time that you value. If you think that you are the only one who can handle your projects, imagine what would happen if you were gone permanently...now how do you behave so that those projects stay alive even when you aren't there?

Many people do this. Many people succeed in the short term this way. But in the end, they are the control freaks in the office that have heartburn nearly every day, grind their teeth at night, yell way too often, and eventually quit from burnout. Believe me, I work in rapid cost modeling in the transportation industry. I know what this feels like and how you get there, one small prep step at a time.

@Chris, thank you for sharing your thoughts. You seem to have a lot of frustration around other people's vacation habits. I'll take some of your suggestions, and try to adapt them for my own context. I hope that they work for you and that you never feel stressed by your own vacations.

@Zee I agree about not being off-limits to devices. My Blackberry is also my Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Reader, etc. outlet, and for me that doesn't include all work. I just haven't learned to resist that temptation to open the little Email icon. I'll get there though! :)

The purpose of working with a team is that you can get more work done because other people are taking care of some of the work for you. It's called leverage and it's great when done right.

It sounds you would benefit from training your team to be more self sufficient. As a people pleaser it's really hard to do. You want to feel needed and if everyone needs you then you feel worthy. In reality though you will feel even better knowing that your team is capable on their own- not with out but because of you.

You'll be able to enjoy your next vacation a lot more with less interruption.

Here is another tip. If you send less emails you get less emails to respond to and you will have more free time.

I find that often it takes me several days to "settle in" to actually being on vacation. Usually it's not until my 3rd or 4th day away from home that I stop worrying about work, trying to check my messages, etc.

So rather than several little trips, I usually go on one, big, 10-day trip every year. That way I've got 3-4 days to get out of work mode, and still 3-4 to enjoy the trip itself.

It is important to be willing to delegate, and willing to give up control. Things may not get done the way you wanted while you are gone, or as well as you would have done them, but if you delegate and train properly, they'll still get done. The silver lining of things getting done even if not your way: people will recognize your value while you're gone.

@Nicole, that's a great plan! I haven't had a chance to do a long trip, and maybe that's why I can't wind down.

@Zee, overdoing vacation does keep you distracted from work, I will give you that.

@Scott Messinger--And the thing is, you are needed, and so was I. I'm sure that your work is appreciated and valued. Actually, I think that's better than being indispensable. If the company/department/team really can't get along with you (and I'm not talking about crunch times, much less actual crises), then something is really wrong!

There is always more work to be done, no matter how much you try to work ahead, or wrap up. So you might as well take a vacation, because there will be more work either way.

@Kimberley, I love the buddy system! In my previous role, that had been how we always handled things, and it worked well. Now that I'm in this different role, your comment reminds me that I haven't quite figured out the buddy system within this new team. I will be using that for my next trip!