Turn Off. Tune In. Or Find "Harmony" Instead of "Balance." Discover What Vacation Style Works for You.

The concepts of “vacations,” “leisure time” and “work-life balance” are big things to me. My vocation and both my personal and intellectual interests are focused intently on the important role that vacations play in helping people have not only a fun and fulfilling life away from work but also a better, more fulfilling life at work.

As a result, I’m always interested in what others say and write about the subject. Recently I came across some interesting insights from several others who have thought deeply about the relationship between our work lives and our personal lives.

Malia Mason, an associate professor of management at Columbia Business School, has long studied how people regulate their attention and the implications that has for their work performance.  A recent article on Columbia’s website noted that while Mason was recently sitting on a beach in Bermuda (quite literally thinking of NOTHING) she came up with a bunch of new and ambitious ideas and goals for her career and life. That such ideas and goals would emerge from a time of maximum disconnection from the world did not surprise her in the least. That’s because she has studied how daydreaming can put the brain in a relaxed state with the kind of relatively slow, rhythmic electrical brain activity that increases the ability to generate creative thought. But not just any kind of daydreaming produces such bursts of insight and creativity. The challenge for professionals juggling a complex life is learning how to daydream without letting the distractions of busy-ness invade that important time of mental relaxation.

Mason strongly urges professionals to truly turn off their “regular” worldly concerns while on vacation so that they can have longer, uninterrupted, un-distracted stretches of time during which their brains are free to explore different thoughts more deeply than otherwise would be the case. By “turning off” our learned habit of constantly thinking about work, physically checking in via a cell phone on what’s happening at work, or on the details of life (“Did I get that PTA meeting on the calendar?”), Mason says “we can be more thoughtful. We suddenly have the patience to let the mind explore big ideas. It gets easier to adopt a big-picture perspective.”

In another recent article, I learned how Nancy Rothbard, a professor at the Wharton School of Business and an expert on how people manage the boundary between work and life, observes that not everyone is comfortable with the common advice that we should segment our work from our personal lives in order to achieve the optimum work-life balance. Some people would go nuts with such work-life segmentation, she contends. Rather, they are “integrators” in that they find the optimum balance in life by integrating work into their personal life, or their personal lives into their work. The key, according Rothbard, is figuring out which is most natural and comfortable for you, and then organizing your life around that. If you’re a segmenter, find ways – like radically disconnected vacations – where you can focus only on your personal life for a week or so. If you’re an integrator, find ways – even on vacation – to incorporate the work you love into your personal life so that both aspects of your life benefit.

Similarly, yet another recent article mentioned how Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos seeks “work-life harmony” rather than the proverbial “work-life balance.” Like many people, Bezos sees no way to truly balance his life, at least not in terms of time. Rather he aims for bringing just as much energy to his personal life with family and friends as he does to his work life. In his view, work-life harmony isn’t about how many hours a person spends at home versus at work, but about the energy they bring to both parts of life. If working long hours energizes you and makes you a more energetic and valuable contributor when it comes to your personal life and those in it, then it’s a good idea to continue putting in those hours at work. Conversely, if your personal life creates great energy and creativity that causes you to be a better, more creative and more effective person work, then keep on investing in your personal life.

As an executive with the world’s largest leisure travel company, it’s great to know that others are giving serious thought to the intersection of our work and personal lives. While it’s clear that taking time off and vacationing is an important thing that people can do for themselves, it’s also clear that how we go about blending our leisure time with our work time is important to work performance, our personal relationships and our overall happiness. Whatever the “right” way for you to use your vacation time turns out to be, we at Carnival Corporation & Plc. are eager and prepared to help you achieve your work-life balance and/or harmony.

See you on board.

Josh