Getting ready to go on holiday can sometimes be preceded by a period of increased stress. There is lots to do to get ready – from preparing to be away from work, household responsibilities, those to-do items that can’t wait any longer, and preparing what you need for the trip itself. By the time you leave for holiday, you’re even more in need of it than you were before. Here are some tips for how to have your vacation actually be a time of rest and rejuvenation.
Don’t put off the tasks you need to get done, you don’t want them lingering in your mind when you are on holiday . According to Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast “If there’s anything you don’t think is a good use of your time, the three choices are to ignore it, minimize it or outsource it,” says Vanderkam. “The first choice is to not doing it — and if you don’t, most likely the earth is not going to crash into the sun.” For instance do you need to reply to that email you were copied on only as an FYI? Will the project fall apart if you don’t respond? To minimize a task, set a strict time limit on it. When folks come to talk about a project, keep the discussion focused and time limited to 15 minutes. This avoids the rambling water cooler talk when you are intent on getting out the door. You should opt to outsource a task when you think someone else would actually enjoy doing it, or would see it as an opportunity to develop his or her skills.
Plan for things to go wrong. Not like in a doomsday feeling kind of way. Just add extra time to pack, give yourself a comfortable cushion of time between connecting flights and have back-up plans for routes or ways to get to the airport. Pack a crossword puzzle and your earbuds so you can start your relaxing right away if you don’t need the extra travel time and find yourself waiting around.
Forget the “hurry up and get there and then relax” kind of attitude. The hurry up part can just get you extra ramped up and then you’ll need even longer to get back down to a level of rest and comfort. Especially if you are driving to a cottage, the rush to relax produces a lot of avoidable animal death on the roads.
Don’t schedule to do ANY work during your holiday time. Sure, you think that one little meeting via Skype or just an hour here and there to put out email fires won’t be a big deal. You’ll have lots of rest time after all, right? Well consider getting someone to check for email emergencies and free yourself up to really REALLY unplug and recharge. Don’t sabotage your vacation time with work, it interrupts you energetically and I’ll bet it affects the people you are travelling with in ways you may not realise (go ahead, ask them).
Make a holiday fun list. Write down the activities you’d like to do on vacation and make a game of how many things get done and what gets deferred for the next holiday.
For future trips, plan in advance whenever you can. Book your vacation time in your calendar before booking your trip so you can work towards sorting out what needs to be done to make the vacation happen. Ask yourself what it would be like if we booked our vacations at the beginning of the year and planned our work around our vacations? Look at making vacations a routine and the necessary space to be a productive person.
What do you do to get ready for your vacation and what rituals, practices and actions do you take to unplug and recharge?