For their 15th wedding anniversary, Katie Walley-Wiegert and her husband decided to take a beach vacation with their young son. But the trip didn’t go as planned. Walley-Wiegert wound up needing to pack her computer because of a work assignment she couldn't ignore.
The 38-year-old marketing professional had just landed a podcast interview for an executive she worked with, and he had a short window to prepare. As she labored away through most of the vacation, she regretted not being present for her toddler's introduction to the ocean.
“I know my husband and my son are having this once-in-a-lifetime first experience, and I am missing it,” Walley-Wiegert said. “And it’s heartbreaking in some regards, because that first will never come again.”
Navigating the line between work time and personal time is tricky for a lot of people. With laptop computers and smartphones making it possible to log in anytime to do work from anywhere, many find it hard to disconnect even when they take vacations.
“It doesn’t take much to just quickly answer an email on your phone or just quickly open up the laptop whilst you’re lying next to the pool,” said Marais Bester, an occupational psychologist in the Netherlands, and senior consultant at SHL, a talent acquisition and management platform. "You get your company-issued phone, you get your company-issued laptop, and there is an expectation to some extent to respond as quickly as possible.”
The compulsion to keep working while on vacation can be so strong that some people carve out time by feigning illness as an excuse to skip group outings, said Amy Biedenstein, senior vice president at human resources software and services company Dayforce.
“There’s starting to be some pressure from families, too, to say, ‘Hey, we need you to be focused and with us when we’re on vacation,’ so I think people are feeling increasingly like they have to hide it,” Biedenstein said.
With the Northern Hemisphere's summer vacation season in full swing, experts offer practical advice for setting boundaries with work during your time off.
Getting ready for a vacation
Once you have your vacation dates set, let teammates know when you plan to be off. Make sure your time off is booked on your office's electronic calendar, which can reduce the number of work requests you receive while you're out, Biedenstein said.
For many people, getting ready for vacation means working late the night before to finish time-sensitive tasks that can't wait until they're back. Try starting earlier. Assessing what needs to get done a week in advance may help reduce last-minute cramming.
You can also block off the afternoon before you leave to tie up loose ends and your first day back in the office to catch up, said time management and productivity coach Alexis Haselberger. Set the automatic replies on your email, Slack and other apps to say you’re not checking messages and will respond the week of your return instead of your first day back, Haselberger advised.
If it's not possible to be completely out of touch, schedule times to check in on work and let co-workers know what those times will be. You also can share your preferred way to be contacted in the event of an emergency.
When Biedenstein's children were little, she sometimes used evenings to work when she had to during family vacations. The time on task made her mind churn to the point she had trouble sleeping. Biedenstein shifted to waking up early and getting in an hour of work before breakfast.
“Once the family was up and moving, that was my cue that work is over and now it’s family time,” she said.
Leaving work starts with your phone
Amanda Olsen, a reporter for the Times Review Newsgroup on Eastern Long Island, doesn't mind answering occasional questions from work when she is taking a staycation to get things done around the house.
When she and her family take backpacking and multi-day canoeing trips in the Adirondacks, Olsen, 47, turns off her cellphone's alerts and notifications. To further make the most of the time outdoors, Olsen sometimes camps in locations with no phone reception.
“Part of that is to disconnect more thoroughly from the world and work,” she said.
Some people recommend leaving work phones behind entirely during vacations. Others temporarily delete work apps such as Slack or email from their phones, although they may need help from tech support to reinstall the apps when they return.
If being unreachable is not an option, set a time to check work emails and notifications once in the morning, and then leave the phone behind for the rest of the day.
"It’s really easy to take that work phone and set it down somewhere and walk away from it,” Biedenstein said.
Time off starts at the top
Pressure to perform turns work into an obsession for some people, especially if they're concerned about getting a promotion, Bester said. One coping strategy is a “quiet vacation” — traveling to a vacation destination discreetly but checking email regularly and doing some amount of work.
“You know you need to take a vacation, you know your body desperately needs the rest, but you still might keep up appearances ... or there’s a culture which expects you to always be on,” Bester said.
One way to improve the chances of vacationing without interruptions is to put a structured plan in place to hand off projects to colleagues, he said. Leaders can encourage those steps.
A manager or executive who immediately answers calls and emails, or checks in with employees instead of unplugging while on vacation, sends the message that the people working under them should do the same.
“When leadership models good behavior, when leadership can take a break and disconnect, then we see employees follow suit,” Biedenstein said.
Employers also can show a workplace that recognizes the importance of time off, as well as a commitment to workers who struggle to pay for vacations, by offering corporate discount programs for airlines or cruises, Biedenstein said.
The benefits of a pause
Taking a clear break to recharge, refocus and take your mind off the daily stresses of the workplace is extremely healthy, Bester said.
“Just to zone out, go into your sort-of nothing box or do something that’s pleasurable, you know, spending time with loved ones," he said. "All of those things have major benefits from a psychological well-being perspective.”
After work intruded on her wedding anniversary trip, Walley-Wiegert plans to go back to the same beach with her family. This time, as someone who now works as a freelancer, she’s setting her own rules. She let her current and potential clients know that she’d be offline for a few days.
“This is my take two,” she said.
Picture Courtesy: AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin
