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** This post was written by Christine Cantera. Find out more about Christine below. **
When you live a location independent lifestyle in a relatively exotic location, every day can seem like a vacation – especially at the beginning.
However, once the excitement of discovering your new home dies down you get into a routine of daily living – and for LIPs, who tend to have a higher rate of travel addiction than the average person, routine can be a scary thing!
Live the lifestyle for long enough and sometimes you might find yourself longing for the days when getting away from it all was as easy as telling your boss you’d be taking off for two weeks.
We location independent professionals know better than anyone how difficult, if not downright impossible, it can be to leave your business and your laptop alone for more than a day…
We’ve seen a random email check during a sleepless night lead to work. We know that for so many of our clients who are nervous about our virtual status, it’s vital to be able to respond instantly. Sometimes we just have a lot of work that requires us to stay in for longer than we’re used to each day.
And, of course, there are those pesky internet addictions that come with being tethered to a computer for work purposes – Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds and a whole host of online distractions that are our guilty pleasures.
For those of us who make at least a portion of our living because of our LIP status – whether it’s through writing about travel, photographing destinations or delivering travel news – it can be that much harder not to use a vacation experience as leverage for doing even more work.
But whilst there is no hard data supporting the need for LIPs to take good old-fashioned vacations, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that, at the very least, a decent break from your laptop and work is a necessary component of your mental health – even if everyone else thinks your life already resembles their dream vacation.
In my experience there are varying degrees of vacation a LIP can take, depending on your work status, the time of year and how absolutely desperate you are to get away from it all.
Let’s take a look at what I’ve found works for me – and see if you can’t swing a little downtime for yourself. Go on, you probably deserve it…
1. The full working vacation
Have you been getting bored easily by your work recently? Maybe you heard about a great travel deal to somewhere close by. Sometimes, you just need a different environment – you don’t mind working, but if you keep looking at the same four walls you’re going to lose it. If this sounds like you, it’s time to mix it up a bit.
The key to making this type of ‘vacation’ work is to make 100% sure that the place you’re going to has dependable internet access that enables you to continue working.
This type of mini-vacation is good for the next town over or even a great local hotel or someplace close by but with a spectacular view. You don’t want to waste time traveling too far.
Get there, get set up, take a breath and enjoy the change of scenery. Don’t forget to take frequent breaks just to stroll around – not having to run errands or see the same faces all the time can make you feel like you’re a million miles away from ‘home’.
2. The fits-and-spurts vacation
Your leisure time should be the priority on this type of vacation – but with a bit of finagling you can still get the work done. Get up a bit earlier to check emails and follow up before you start your day, use the down time in late afternoon to get a bit of work done and check in again before going to sleep.
You should be online or otherwise working for no more than 3-4 hours total a day – and never more than an hour or so at a time if you want to feel like you’re really taking a break.
Again, it’s important to book a place that has reliable internet access – there is absolutely nothing worse than having a fun day hijacked by a bad signal.
3. The totally unplugged vacation
This one obviously takes a bit more forward planning and the use of some online tools to ensure your business doesn’t die forever when you unplug – but it can be done. Even if you do it for a short amount of time – which I recommend your first time out – it can really recharge your batteries…
- Contact your clients and customers ahead of time to let them know you’ll be unreachable for the time you plan to be away.
- Many email services allow you to set an “away” or “out of office” message – set this up before you go.
- Hide your profile on any freelance sites you work from or advertise yourself on.
- Do a quick blog post about your impending absence.
- Set timed Tweets to go out every day, saying you’re still on vacation.
For whatever online communication you use, there is a way to make it work for you while you’re gone. You might be nervous your first day of an unplugged vacation. Don’t worry! The feeling goes away, to be replaced by blissful silence and long days of leisure. Enjoy it!
I can so relate to this.
After moving to Florida from the UK it took me almost a year to realize I wasn’t on holiday. A beer by the pool wasn’t the answer to everything!
Then for the next 2 years I went the opposite way and now I could really do with a break. It is warm and lovely outside, but my office is just like my office in the UK and total disengagement is helpful from time to time.
It was hard for me to balance my online career and my site seeing career in Taiwan. It was such a pull.
Good article and tough choices. I think the best solution is to build as many automated processes as possible to reduce the need to be totally attached to the laptop.
The place I’m staying at the moment actually switch their WiFi off on a night. Wow, being forced to stop work late evening is like having a holiday everyday!
I also have a “I’m on tour at the moment so email replies may take a little longer than usual” message on my contact page which works wonders.
I laughed when I read about spending time on the guilty online pleasures…facebook, twitter, etc. Sometimes the line between personal and professional gets blurred so I justify this as “business promotion” when I really should be writing and working.
Since most of our time is on the road, we find that our comfort zone is moving around and we have a hard time getting into a work routine when we are still. I definitely agree that LIPs need to have a vacation from time to time – just to clear your head and get perspective. I look forward to reading more from you.
I guess these are the issues we all face. On the one side I must constantly remind myself and my partner that we are not on holiday and that the reason we set up this business in the first place was so that I can work it from anywhere in the world and so that I can visit my family in Australia once a year for extended periods (from our former home in Canada) and continue working and making money. Now we have given up our home in Canada and live overseas full-time. Although I only work a couple of hours most days, I do sometimes feel the strong need to just totally get a break from having to check on the business/ emails/sales/calls 24/365 days a year.
I’m at the point now where I’ve realized that the only way I can get a complete break is to go away a few days on my own and let my husband/partner take care of the administration for a few days while I’m gone. I also usually try to take Sundays (North American time) completely off away from the business each week as most people don’t expect the office to be open or calls or emails returned on Sunday even if they place an order.
Carmel, I hear you. We run our own business, and in order to get away completely one of us has to stay behind. We enjoy it, though – it keep us from killing each other! And we plan out a schedule when we do go away together, to ensure we’re not sitting in front of the computer the whole time.