I’m trying to figure out the best way to go on a vacation. Do you stay connected and check email throughout your trip or completely disconnect?
Stay connected and you do not let your mind completely rest. If disconnect then you have 1000+ emails to welcome you home from your trip.
I think you need at least a week a year that you “get off the grid.†If you are able to stay on top of things while on vacation, then perhaps you can take more vacations?
(On a side note, I have not received work email on my phone for 3 years. This has been a huge boost for my sanity. A topic for another post.)
I think you need to totally unplug. A vacation means that you are getting away from it all. It means renewal and refreshment. That’s so hard to do when you are still plugged into the “Matrix.”
Actually I am guilty of it. When I went to Japan this year I checked my email everyday. Personal and work. Personal because I was meeting people and didn’t have a working cell in Japan. Work because I wanted to make sure nothing was crashing, sites weren’t messed up, and everyone had the correct permissions. I am sure the DEVers could have handled it but there is always that little guy in the back of your head asking you if everything is working correctly?
I stay on email constantly even when on vacation. I’m looking for a 12 step program to get off of it. I don’t want my kid’s memory of me to be always looking down at my mobile whenever they turn around.
My question is how antiquated will this all look 5 years from now? Will messaging 3.X allow us to feel freer from our devices or even more dependent? I search the TED site for some visionary thoughts on that but have not come across yet. I read an essay about how Google views the future of mobile and how interconnected our GPS/Calendar/Messaging will be and how it will keep us on schedule…sounds like a nightmare/dream!
My 5 year old nephew to my wife on the phone, “Say hi to Uncle John, is he on his Computer?”
Do what I did: hire a virtual assistant for $25/hour to pre-read all your email. (This is good for the economy; I’m providing a job for a homebound woman in Illinois.) I forward all my email to her, and have trained her to run my listserv, online store, website and webinar site. She cleans out all the junk, handles what she can, and fowards MUST READ emails to my Gmail account. Everyone who sends me an email gets an out-of-office message, telling them where I am, what I am doing, and when I’ll be back.
Then I can go on vacation in peace.