As I wrote about earlier, I took a week long vacation, and vowed for the first time in five years to completely disengage from anything and everything work related. As we know, in our hyper-connected society, many of us have the ability and flexibility to work from anywhere in the world at anytime, and this can be a good and bad thing.  In fact, while on my unplugging venture, reading this article about work/life imbalance and the workplace flexibility paradox stood out like a sore thumb.

After staying true to that promise, here are some lessons I learned:

1. The people you work with support you unplugging. The aren’t angry, resentful or frustrated that you are taking time away, they are glad for you and are willing to support and even hold you accountable for doing so. Case in point, one email I got from a client when I got back said, “You better not be reading this until you get back from vacation!”

2. Unplugging helps you reconnect with what you truly enjoy doing; realize these enjoyments need to be incorporated into your daily life.  I took time to read, run, cook and most importantly just play with my family while gone. I do all these things at home, but not as regularly as I should. Making time to do them while in the throws of the routine of work and home is important and helps with not hitting burnout mode.

Playing Bumper Boats

3. Leaving the temptations at home helps. I left my laptop at home, and this kept me from feeling like I needed to check email or work on something. Had I had it with me, I’m not sure if I would have stayed true to the commitment. Find a time, even if it is not a vacation in the true sense, to leave your work temptations someplace else and regroup.

4. Email is not that important.  I returned to almost 500 emails. I was surprised to see that only about 1-2% of the emails I received while gone were all that important. Also relevant to this fact was the lesson I learned- if you send fewer emails, you receive fewer.   I’m working now to not be ruled by my email. I’m only checking it once or twice a day and thinking before I send one. Is it really necessary?

Have you unplugged lately? What did you learn?