Balance

If you want to put more balance in your life and vacation, read on. These practical tips will help you (and your family) enjoy your vacation more, guaranteed.

Choice
If you want to have a vacation that is more vacation and less work, it all starts with a choice. Am I willing to, and will I, leave the Blackberry off and not check my voice mail or email? While it is easy to make this statement, making the choice might be very hard. Hard or easy, in the end, it is as simple as a choice. If you choose not to work or be distracted by work-related items while on your vacation, you won’t be.

Urgent vs. Important
The ease of contact that technology brings us makes this choice even more clear. 30 years ago if you went on vacation it was harder to be sucked back into work because there weren’t so many easy ways to be in touch. With the mobile phone, laptop, and internet everywhere, it is easy to assume that everything back at work is urgent.

Most of it isn’t.
The decision or mental "tug" to work while on vacation is about the urgent things in life. Your family (or your vacation in general) is quite likely more important to you, but it is the perceived urgency of the work that draws us back in. Remember what is really important to you. During a vacation is an especially good time to remain focused on the important; and not the merely urgent things in our lives.

Remove the Distractions.
Leave your phone, your Blackberry at home – they will be just fine in the drawer. If you leave the gadgets at home instead of carrying them with you everywhere you go, you’ll be far less likely to check your messages while you’re in line for the ride or sitting by the beach.

Have a Plan
Have a plan at work before you leave. Change your voice mail and email announcement to let people know you aren't in touch for several days. This will leave you with fewer urgent items on your return, and lower your anxiety level while you are gone.

Keeping these things in mind will give you greater balance and help make your next vacation as refreshing and rejuvenating as it can be. Take these actions and you’ll have you best vacation ever, and you will return better equipped both mentally and physically to be highly effective back at work.