The Case for Time Out

Did you get put in time out as a kid? I did a really bad thing as a precocious and overly confident 10 year old.? I snuck into my Mom’s closet, took a new pantsuit off the hanger and exercised my freshly acquired sewing skills by cutting it down to my size.? I loved how the tropical hibiscus and palm fronds popped against the black background and thought bright orange thread might add a punch to my stitching. The spaghetti straps lived up to their name by the time I was done with my alterations.

My Mom didn’t find the project charming or interesting, hence my punishment was a long time out.

As a kid, I hated time out and I think most kids feel the same.? Sitting in a corner staring at the wall only magnified the amazing things I could be doing~ riding my 10 speed, climbing a tree, making a fort, foraging for wildflowers or adding a room to my pet rock’s house.? I was supposed to use this time to reflect on what I did wrong, but time outs never worked that way for me. Time outs sparked my imagination.

45 years later, time outs morphed from a punishment to a pleasure.? I’m enjoying an extended time out from 35 years of banking, which feels at first like a long vacation until reality sinks in that I don’t have 943 emails to read, 26 scheduled Teams meetings and a few fire drills to put out when I get home.? That’s not to say there’s nothing to do~ the old adage about retired people saying they don’t know how they found time to work is true.? After 3 weeks in Baja, we came home to 200 vines to prune, a half acre garden to plant with tomatoes, corn, peppers, beans, asparagus, beets, watermelon and cantaloupe, irrigation to repair and our neighbors cows to tend (meet Mo and Jo!)

Time out is the counterpoint to a sense of urgency and unfortunately the work world overweights urgency to time out.? According to Pew Research’s 2023 study, 52% of workers don’t take all their vacation time because they feel like they’ll fall behind, miss something important, or guilty for others picking up their workload. And while we’re at work, we’re on 24/7 because technology makes us 100% accessible with cell phones, texts, email, MS Teams. Despite all our innovation, we are working longer and wearing our urgency like a badge of honor.

Let’s play 3 questions:

1. ? When you take vacation, do you check your email?
2. ? If you check your email, do you respond?
3. ? If you didn’t check your email and didn’t respond, could someone else pick up the task or?would the entire corporation you work for fall apart?

Let’s be honest~ employees are always replaceable, and work can always be reallocated. This happens when someone goes on medical leave, takes another job, passes away or their role gets eliminated.? Business finds a way forward with or without you. Rather than focusing on urgency, think about pacing your time and make no mistake that your time is one of your most valuable resources next to your health.

So what about you?

Here’s my perspective.? Vacations are a sacred “time out” and that means no email, no voicemail, no cell calls or Teams calls. Trust me, the corporation you work for won’t fall apart unless you’re in an entrepreneurial business and you’re the entrepreneur.? If you are the only person in the business you work for who can solve the issue, then fine~ take the call.? Otherwise, you are in “time out”.?

That’s the place to rediscover the you who isn’t the employee but the kid who imagines the “what ifs” beyond what the adult you gets paid to do.