It is healthy to limit work requests and allow your resting hours and vacations to recharge batteries.
Sunday morning and your inbox is brimming with email from partners and co-workers from abroad. You need a vacation.
The temptation to boot up your laptop and take “just a few minutes” to clear some of the most urgent messages starts creeping up as your kids or your spouse start waking and coming up with ideas on what to do with the day.
Before you know it, lunch has gone by and you still have not turned off your computer.
Ask yourself a question: do lives depend on your answering those email immediately or can they wait until Monday while you actually rest and take care of your relation with your loved ones?
Most performance experts agree that people work better when fully rested and by that they don’t mean just sleeping but actually using the time away from the desk to perform different activities and disconnect from electronics such as smartphones.
They recommend activities that naturally don’t agree with connected devices, so next time you feel the urge to look at your screen while on downtime maybe go for a swim or a bike ride and come back on Monday, fully rested and ready to answer all requests.
A few tips for keeping your work from taking over your free time and vacations:
- Mean it: If you say you are going to rest, put away your work tools and do something else.
- Be there: When doing something away from work, take the time to properly enjoy it without distractions. Eat the food, enjoy the walk, go deep into meditation and take advantage of it.
- Go far away: Or at least, when possible, to a place where 4G and Wi-Fi coverage is absent or spotty so you can devote your time to other tasks.
Go on vacation now!
