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Transcript

Should You Work on Vacation? · The Daily Writer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to the Daily Writer, where we help writers become authors of their own lives.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Since today is Sunday, which is supposedly a day of rest, let's dive into a topic related to whether you should work when you're supposed to be resting.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of my readers, who shall remain nameless because they asked the question in private, and I don't want to embarrass him.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of my readers recently took a short vacation with his wife.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: He had some work to do on his email newsletter and his podcast, and he felt guilty that he needed to spend a couple of mornings that week getting his work done.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So he asked whether I thought it was okay to work while on vacation.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't think there's necessarily a clear answer that applies to every situation because people have all kinds of temperaments and schedules and expectations for what a vacation is supposed to be.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that being said, my basic philosophy about vacation and really life in general comes from the late Dan Miller, the host of the 48 Days Podcast, and lots of great books and lots of other great things.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: His sentiment was this: make it your goal to build a life that you don't need a vacation from.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And man, that is a really, really fantastic life philosophy.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the first time I heard him say that, I thought, bingo, that is it.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's it right there.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've summed up the whole thing right there, Dan.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it's more true than ever.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: My goal has been to build a life in a business where I get to wake up every day doing work that I love.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Which then begs the question: if you enjoy doing your work so much, why would you need to escape from it?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because to me, my work is kind of like play.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for example, I get to come to a cool co-working space where I have an office, I get to talk to people I like, I get to do calls with writers as well as clients I love working with, and I get to work on cool projects that bring me income and creative fulfillment.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, as I'm recording this, today it's October the 2nd.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is Friday.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday afternoon.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's 1.36 p.m.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: right now.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this episode will come out in a couple days.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I could be out roofing or digging ditches or working some other job that I don't want to do, but instead I get to sit here in this nice, comfortable office with a cool, um, with a cool setup, and I have cool people around me in the co-working space, and it's nice and quiet today on this Friday afternoon.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And how could life be any better?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've set up my life in a way that I don't feel like I need to escape from it on a daily basis.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I realize people have all kinds of different situations, and that may not be, that may not be your situation, and that's totally okay.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I have really made it my goal to set up my life so that I don't need to escape from it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I often joke that at some point people are going to find out I don't have a real job and they're going to make me go work for Home Depot or deliver packages for Amazon.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, nothing wrong with those jobs if you enjoy that kind of work, but that's not what I want to do with my time.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, my basic view of vacation as Americans practice it is that if you hate your work so much that you can only enjoy yourself on vacation two or three weeks a year, you've got a much bigger problem than figuring out if you should do some work on vacation.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings me to my real answer to this question.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a long setup for this.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So apologies slash no apologies.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my real answer.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: With the understanding that I enjoy all of my work, I do distinguish between work that requires a lot of brain power and work that doesn't.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm on vacation with my family, I don't want to do work that takes very much brain power.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that would include things like doing client calls, working on client books, and anything related to these daily emails or my podcasts, because in spite of the fact that it probably seems like this is easy for me, it actually requires a lot of thinking and brain power and writing and recording and editing and all these all the things that go into the stuff that you experience from me.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I try to show up as a competent person, but it takes a lot of time and effort to do something that seems maybe at times polished.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I actually come across all that polished on this podcast.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not, but I try to show up and do the best that I can with the time that I have available to do this podcast.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to these kinds of things, I enjoy them.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I really do.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love the challenges that they represent.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love doing client work.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love working on books and all those kinds of things, but I don't want to do those on vacation.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because I don't like them, it's because I really want to be present with my family.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm engaged in work that takes a lot of brain power, I can't really be fully present with my family.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: The main type of work that doesn't require a lot of brain power from me is reading.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Reading is important to my personal and professional growth, and I hope that it's important to yours as well.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because of that, I take a book basically everywhere that I go.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean that very literally.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean if I go sit down to a restaurant, uh, if I walk in and I'm waiting on somebody, I've got a book with me.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I keep a book in my truck.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I, if I'm waiting on my wife, she's in a store, or whatever the case, if I'm uh stuck somewhere in traffic, I've got a book to read.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I have even been known to take books with me to St.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Cardinals baseball games.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because let's be honest, there's not that much exciting that happens in a baseball game.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, baseball is basically guys in uniforms standing around for a few hours, and it's punctuated occasionally by moments of interest and action.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of my view on baseball.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I still love baseball games, but there's not a lot that really happens in any given baseball game, usually.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of just kind of standing around and people chilling out, which I'm totally cool with, but I don't really want to sit there for four hours and be bored to death.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to have something to do in between the home runs and the hot dogs and nachos and all that stuff.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, all that said, I am definitely taking a book with me on vacation, usually multiple books.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of output, I don't really want to be doing output while I'm on vacation.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be working on podcasts and emails and client books and heavy writing, that's my own stuff.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it has nothing to do with wanting to escape from those things, but rather just being present mentally and emotionally with the people that I love the most.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm gonna totally reverse on that for a second and say that when you are running a business, as I am and as you may be, there are inevitably times that you need to work outside of traditional business hours.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that might occasionally be on vacation.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm totally okay with that because at the end of the day, I get to write and I get to work with cool people.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: End of story.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't consider having to work occasionally odd hours or maybe having to do a bit of work on vacation.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is not a burden, it's really a privilege.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: It just means hey, you've got a business and you got to get stuff done, and sometimes we have to work odd hours, and I'm totally okay with that.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't consider that to be an imposition, but it but again, I consider that to be a privilege.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I have a life that I don't need to escape from.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that's your goal as well to do work that you enjoy so much that you don't mind if it sometimes spills over into odd hours.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for listening.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Keep writing, keep showing up, and I'll see you tomorrow.