August 15th, 2007
Taking my annual unplugged vacation.
Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about how people are finding it harder and harder to take the traditional week or more off in August.
I'm happy to report I am taking a week plus off starting August 17, and I will NOT be checking email or voice mail. In fact, I won't be near a computer!
I have to admit that I feel somewhat nervous about taking more than a week off -- and according to the WSJ article, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Many people find it so hard to take time off, they now do long weekends -- with the BlackBerry -- instead.
However, work/life balance is something I've been working on for the last eight months, and as we all know, downtime is important -- especially for copywriters. So I'm taking it, with the intent of coming back totally recharged and ready for action.
On another note, if you need some good vacation reading, do check out The President's Secret IMs by Danielle Crittenden. She does a superb job of capturing the voices of Bush, Clinton, Condi, et al -- all written in IM jargon. Hilarious! I laughed so much, I had tears streaming down my face.
So TTFN -- and I'll catch up with you all later in the month.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I took 2 weeks off last month. Went to a lake in Georgia for a week and Lake Tahoe for another week.
Best part: no laptop, no cell phone, no checking voicemail or email. Surprisingly, the world didn’t come to an end. Clients didn’t fire me. My business didn’t collapse. And not watching the news for 2 weeks didn’t cause the stock market to crash (the Dow actually broke 14,000 that week!).
I will admit that 2 weeks was hard for me to commit to at first. I’ve never taken that much time off outside of Christmas. But I did it. And I’ll do it again.
Read “The Kite Runner” while in Tahoe. Another wonderful vacation book!
August 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Ed, I’ve never taken more than a week off, too. So I’m pretty excited about having 12 days to relax — especially since I always come back from vacation still exhausted. A week really isn’t that much time to recharge.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Have a wonderful, relaxing time, Dianna!! You certainly deserve it.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Dianna,
Today is August 22nd. By now you have given your vacation a good start. Could you resist finding an internet cafe and checking your email?
When we take a “real” vacation now, my wife threatens to throw my laptop out the window if I bring it along!
However, I admit that I do sneak a peak at email on my Treo phone from time to time, and check my voice mail occasionally, just to see if any “emergencies” have come up!
August 27th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Mac,
I resisted the urge for the entire time but as you can see, I’m back early. I feel really relaxed and rested and thought it would be nice to ease back into the work routine.
My husband has a Blackberry — which I am ready to throw into the ocean. He was connected the entire time and ended up having to work on a major RFQ.