Monday, May 9, 2011

The Challenge of Taking Time Off From Work to Unplug

If you’ve read any of my past posts, you may already know that I’m facing a big count down to move my family to another state in just four weeks. And I’m literally sweating bullets over it.
I haven’t moved in 12 years. Before that, however, moving was a sort of beloved past time for me. I'm sure my loyal male friends hated seeing my name flash across their caller ID every six months. Eventually I grew up, married a man who insisted on stability as far as residences go, so we settled down and bought a house putting my wandering ways to rest.

Now we must move due to necessity and I’m not so sure I’m up for the task. I mean I’m a little out of practice. One thing I do remember from my nomadic days is that it helps to give yourself a couple of days to get the necessities unpacked so you can quickly establish some semblance of normalcy even though the reality of digging stuff out of boxes over the next year is just part of the relocation package. That means I will need to take a few days off from work and unplug.
Staying away from my computer and resisting the desire to constantly check my phone for emails, Tweets, updates and what not won’t be easy. I spend so much time scrolling through my phone and responding to emails while talking to my husband that he jokingly refers to me as a teenager.

So, back to unplugging… You may be thinking about this too if you’re planning to take some time off this summer. I work on completing projects currently in the pipeline and letting clients know that I’ll be unavailable for however long I need to be away.

How do you prepare to unplug and take time off from work?

3 comments:

Lisa Vella said...

Unplugging is so hard to do, but you really seem to have it so together, Kimberly! I have no doubt that you will be able to be a great mom, get through your move, and complete all your writing projects successfully and efficiently!

As for me, I continue to try to balance all the things I enjoy without being too hard on myself when I don't get everything completed on my list.

Good luck with everything!

Kimberly Ben said...

Awww, Thanks for that encouraging post, Lisa. If you were standing in my living room right now you'd see that I don't quite have it all together at all. ;~)

I tend to be kind of hard on myself when it comes to completing everything on my daily to-do list too. I'm going to work on cutting myself a little slack.

Deirdre Reid said...

I took last week off from everything to have an at-home retreat -- which is why I'm only now reading your post. I wrote about my experience today on my blog Reid All About It.

I planned ahead to get all client work done and created a schedule for the week of what I wanted to accomplish. But, I changed my focus just one day in, thank goodness. It was a fabulous week. I highly recommend it.

 
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