Last week, as you likely read, I flew home from vacation. As I have been diving in with both feet this week (short week last week, and starting the new school year this week), I have done a little post-vacation reflection. Here are a few thoughts I have had as I think about my time off:
- Unplug, hard. I love listening to podcasts. The topics of said podcasts vary greatly–business/entrepreneurship, leadership, ministry, and sports are my main topics of listening. On vacation, however, I made a point to limit my podcast intake. Whereas in a normal week I will listen to 15-20 hours of podcasts, on vacation, I limited myself to maybe 3. I wanted a shift in my routine, which brings me to my next point.
- Shift in routine. During the middle of June I had a conversation with one of my girls. She was said that either she was leaving or I was leaving, and I told her I knew our summer was crazy, but if we could make it to vacation, we were going to have a blast. While I’m not winning any Father of the Year awards for my summer scheduling (something I’ll definitely tweak before next year), we got on vacation and shifted our routine. We spent an incredible amount of time together, and honestly it didn’t matter to me what we did as long as we did it together. Unless it was a manicure/pedicure, I ducked out for that one.
- Relax. Midway through our time away, I realized we were running pretty fast, even in vacation mode. We were, after all, in a very sight-seeing rich part of Virginia. So, the next day, we hit the brakes and hit them hard. We slept in, swam, read, snacked, watched a movie, and just enjoyed time together without an agenda for the day.
I’m very grateful for the leaders in my life who respected my time away and with my family. It means the world to me that the key people above me value my time with my family.
Finally, let me say this: I handled frustrations at the beginning and end of vacation in two very different ways. The end is what I posted about last week. The beginning? Well, let’s just say I am not proud of the things I did, and upon reflecting, I was in dire need of vacation.
When was the last time you got away? What were you able to successfully do to unplug and refresh on your vacation?