Balancing Work and Vacation

For many people I know, taking vacation time is hard. It’s not that they don’t want to take their vacation days. It’s just that they feel like they have so much work to do, it’s hard for them to take time off work.

I was talking to my friend yesterday about this very problem. We discussed how we were torn about taking vacation days, because although it’s fun to take days off work it can just make your life miserable when you go back to work because you have so much more to do.

I’m facing a bit of that this week with my kids out of school for spring break. Depending on your job, this can be a great thing. However, when you’re an entrepreneur that works for yourself, it’s much harder. This is also true for people who have a job that they love. I’ve found it quite interesting that those people who enjoy their vacation days the most are the people that hate their job. People that love their job are stuck in this place of being torn between vacation and time at work.

All of us that are stuck in my position realize that taking time off work is a good thing for you and for your company. We’ve read all the studies. Productivity is enhanced if you really can take time off work and get a break from it all. However, that doesn’t fix the issue that when you get back to work it can sometimes be miserable because of the days you’ve missed. Plus, if you’re stressed out on vacation about the things you’re missing, that doesn’t make for a great vacation.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many answers to this challenging problem. Although, I figured writing about it might help some other people are dealing with the same issue. So, feel free to chime in with your thoughts in the comments.

I do recall a time when I felt like I couldn’t do everything and a friend of mine told me, “John, you can’t do everything, but you can do everything you can to enjoy the moment that you’re in.” I love the concept of work hard and play hard. As I balance work and play this week, I’m going to keep that in mind and try to make sure that whichever thing I’m doing I’m focused on the task at hand and not worrying too much about the rest.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

Categories