How you spend your vacation matters ????

I am writing this from Prague airport. My vacation is just about to start, and I’ve decided to disconnect from all work-related channels: Slack, email, Greenhouse, LinkedIn – everything!

Why am I doing that? ??

At the start of this week, we had our very first People Ops all-hands meeting, led by our VP of People, Jessica Keeler. She started just a few weeks ago, so we met for the first time during our company offsite in Portugal last month. During the all-hands, we discussed a range of people ops-related topics, helping our team to align across both sides of the Atlantic.

??% performance

Jessica knew that quite a few of us had booked vacation in the coming weeks. Before asking how we planned to cover people’s responsibilities while they are away, she set out some expectations around how we should spend our time off. I will try my best to paraphrase what Jessica said: 

“I want you to spend your vacation completely off. You're working hard, and you deserve time to relax. Because, once you are back, I need you to be 100% focused and ready to achieve our goals. Don't worry, we can handle your daily tasks as a team while you are away.”

I was quite tired at the time, so I perhaps didn’t appreciate what she said as much as I should have. But later, when I was on my way home, I started thinking about it – how much sense it made to me, and how grateful I was to experience this amazing lesson in leadership.

??Why relaxing on vacation benefits everyone 

Why is it important to disconnect from your job when on vacation? I thought about this question a lot, but I wasn't satisfied with the simple answer: because vacation is for relaxing. Finally, I realized that working during your vacation doesn’t help your employer in the long run, let alone yourself.

Why? Because your employer is paying you for the value you bring to the company – and that means performing at 100%. When you have a vacation, your employer pays you to have a rest, so you can come back and perform again at 100%. 

When you aren’t 100% relaxed during your vacation, you probably won’t be able to perform at 100% at work – at least not in the long term. 

??Mammoth hunters with iPhones ??

I have just read Sapiens by Noah Yuval Harari. Now that I can see mankind in a wider context (not only because of the book), I’m convinced that we're trying to use the same “biological equipment” that mammoth hunters had. And I truly believe that mammoth hunters got more rest than we do. 

So don't try to hack your brain. Instead, take the opportunity, make a conscious decision, and try to disconnect from work during your vacation – as I am going to. My fingers are crossed as I uninstall Slack, LinkedIn, Gmail, etc.