Let it all behind you
The dreary English summer, the threat of floods and the silly season for the newspapers - it’s no surprise that so many of us jet off to foreign climes. And yet we seem less inclined to give ourselves a real break and leave our office lives at the airport.
Information’s stock has never been higher – and being cut off from our daily stream of news, mails and calls leaves many of us in mourning. Although you would do well to find a country that doesn’t have internet cafes, this simply won’t do for the thousands that take their PDAs, mobile phones and laptops on holiday with them.
But why on earth is a nation that makes moaning about work a national sport so disinclined to use their precious holiday time to forget all about the daily rigours?
I personally think that e-mails have a case for being as addictive as hard drugs. How else would you explain the desire to check work e-mails every 15 seconds with a BlackBerry, or Wi-Fi on commuter trains?
I understand that some people feel that the only way they can keep on top of things is by dealing with everything in real time – cutting out those dreadful backlogs that inevitably occur when you have time out of the office.
It’s almost as if we are contractually obliged to make up for the time we take off as holiday by using our already limited leisure time to keep things well-oiled and stress free at our desk.
You don’t need me to point out that this isn’t the case. The constant grind of work – however much you enjoy your job – is draining; it’s one of the reasons that we look forward to our holidays so much.
And yet, we are now polluting even this sacred time with bits and pieces of work that, let’s be honest, should wait.
When this article idea originally came up it was about escaping from your mobile phones – but the honest truth is that I would never leave it behind. A mobile is far too useful in case of an emergency and cutting yourself off from your loved ones is very different from cutting yourself off from work.
But, if you are using your work mobile for your personal life (or vice versa), then it’s probably worth thinking about getting a second handset and making a definite mark in the sand as to where your work stops and your life starts.
If you have a BlackBerry or a laptop then think very hard about your true motivation for taking it away with you. Are you really going to resist the urge to just check a few e-mails to lighten the load when you get back? If you take a laptop and find a Wi-Fi hotspot are you really going to be doing casual surfing or is it going to be a brief check of things that interest you and a longer foray into sorting a few things out for the office?
It seems to me that honesty with yourself about these things is the first step in the tricky battle of making sure your holidays give you the break you truly need.
There was a time, before the technology for always-on e-mail or even mobile telephony became ubiquitous, when a holiday meant just that. People left their work behind because they didn’t really have any other choice. After a short time on the plane all their problems were 40,000 feet beneath them, and people could relax in the knowledge that the most difficult decision they would have to make for a week was Pina Colada or Sex on the Beach.
In some ways we can never get back to those halcyon days (in holiday terms at least), but we can use technology to make sure that we minimise the potential interruptions. I’ve already mentioned having separate mobiles for work and personal, but an out of office macro on your mail means that people aren’t expecting immediate attention.
Screening your calls is also a good idea – try to make sure your loved ones are ringing from phones that show up the caller so that you can instantly tell if it’s your Gran or your boss trying to track you down. However vital you may be to your work, there’s a reason why you are given holiday time; to step away from work and relax.
Just remember that stressed and burnt out workers are not nearly as productive for companies – and even the most hard-nosed bosses understand that a happy worker is always likely to do a much better job.
So the next time you are preparing to put your laptop in your suitcase, ask yourself: can I manage without it? Because the chances are you can – and your work can probably manage without you for a couple of weeks a year as well. |