There have been so many times when I have been tempted to do some level of work on my vacations. Any vacation. From checking my personal email. To taking a quick glance at my blackberry. Even sneaking down to the hotel business center and spending about an hour on the computer. Believe me, I did some of this when I was on vacation last week!

We are so much in the routine of working that we do not often know how to shut that part of our life off. Your employer and your clients expect you to shut off your personal life when you sit in an office or meet face-to-face with them. So why so often do we have a hard time shutting off our professional life when we go away from the office?

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Here are some simple steps to be effective at your vacation while your on vacation.

1. Let your employer and clients know you are going on vacation. This information helps you and everyone else around you prepare for any potential backlog of work. It allows the people you report to and those who report to you prepare for your absence. They can ask and answer any questions that may be pertinent to the time you are away. Your vacation is a part of your benefit so don’t minimize your benefit by allowing work to dip into your time.
2. Don’t tell anyone but close friends and colleagues where you are going. This is sometimes difficult for any of us to keep a secret. You need to inform the important people that you are going on vacation. However, you are not obligated to let anyone at your workplace know where? I have known plenty of people that have been contacted by clients, vendors and work at their location when an emergency hits forcing them to stop what they’re doing. I have even heard of people having to come back from their vacations. Keeping your whereabouts silent is not always prime but sometimes needed!
3. Turn off your phone. With so much technology in the palm of our hands, an innocent check could possibly turn into a few hours of keying, calendar syncs and long calls. Don’t be a victim. You may leave the phone power on for emergencies but keep it off your hip when you shouldn’t be interrupted.
4. When you go out to relax make sure there are no outlets near you. Don’t go into a relapse just because you have the ability to reconnect or power up.
5. Turn off your computer. Repeat what I said for step 3, cross out phone and add in ‘computer.’
6. Better yet, don’t bring your computer or device. If the emergency is that big or you need to get on a connect to simply clear messages and quick spot checks once a day for 30 minutes then just head down to the business center. This will keep you from having easy access in your room. Better yet, the trip down to the business center could be annoying and keep you from being connected all together… YEAH!
7. Add your own… I am sure you have some approaches and best practices to unplug and relax. What are they (comment below)?

You can be connected but will you be so connected that your work begins to disconnect you from your vacation and relaxation?

Do you have anything to add? Please leave a comment and tell me your advice and stories of how your kept from being interrupted or were distracted from your vacation by work?

A few weeks back I had an article reminding that while you work hard, be sure to take your vacation. Too many people forget or find it hard to do so. Well I never forget and try to get that time away as much as I am able. With that in mind, last week I was on vacation and even though I’m back, I would rather be on the beach. However, I am back in the rainy weather.

If you do happen to hit the sun and sand this summer, be sure to bring a pillow! If you can’t bring a pillow then make one.

Don’t know how, well watch this video and learn from the master in a few easy steps. You can make your own and be glad that you did.

Make a sand pillow (important for business, I know – 1 minute, 30 secs)

A big thank you to my guest bloggers last week. If you missed reading, please feel free to check them out.

Training is not always the answer by Trish Mcfarlane and

Managing up: The Myth by Cindy Jordan

Technology HAS NOT helped us to work less
In 2007, Business Week had an article entitled Do Us A Favor, Take A Vacation!

The article discusses how the American Worker makes an art of NOT taking vacations. How we deny ourselves the break a vacation gives even when we are on vacation. It’s a fact how technologies we created were suppose to help us work less – as defined by 1960/70′s utopia theorist – but in all actually we have created a situation where we work when we should not. After we wake up in the morning, on the commute, during lunch, after work and in the evenings; we find it even harder to get a way. Forbes had an article discussing how people can Use Technology to Spend Less Time Working but I’m not so sure about it.

It could be the economy. Our endless drive to get ahead or the fact that we are even afraid – and maybe guilty – to take the vacations we work so hard for.

Survey Says!!!
The article cites some interesting percentages based on a survey by the employment firm Hudson:

• More than 50% of American workers fail to take all their vacation days.
• 30% say they use less than half their allotted time.
• 20% take only a few days instead of a week or two.
• Among so-called extreme jobholders 42% claim they have to cancel vacation plans “regularly.”
• Americans take even less vacation than the Japanese, the people who gave rise to karoshi—the phenomenon of being worked to death.

These figures were listed in 2007. I can only imagine what it is like today!

Management has a tougher time of saying “See ya next week!”
The article also states: Even when managers do go away, they don’t get away. Instead of mentally checking out in cabanas with cocktails, Americans have become bent-headed people of the hand held or laptop—gear that was supposed to be the mighty liberator but has turned into a wireless manacle. Which is why hotels are offering to lock up workaholics’ BlackBerrys, companies are frog-marching people off on vacation whether they like it or not, resorts are springing up that offer an unplugged respite from the world of work, and doctors are starting to write prescriptions for—YES—vacations.

While I am not currently working, it does not mean that I shouldn’t get away from the job of looking for a job – from the job of life. I think people need to take time for themselves. They need a get-a-way from the everyday surroundings that make them worry, stress, or think of their work. Sometimes we even need a get-a-way from our vacation.

I’m On Vacation!!!, but still come back here and visit!
With that, I’ll be on Vacation next week. Be on the look out for a few guest post from some great writers. I’ll be off to sun and beaches to enjoy time with family and maybe even play some golf.

Miss me while I’m gone but don’t miss me so much because as Arnold Schwarzenegger said I’ll be back!

ReThinkHR.org
@BenjaminMcCall

What?

First off I am not talking about working your full time corporate job all while taking on hourly/contract or even part-time work at your local Kohl’s. No. I am talking about working one job and receiving, in your mind a salary, but in reality you are just getting an hourly wage.

Whether you’re exempt or non-exempt, we have all become hourly employees

The answer to the ‘HOW’ is so simple. Ready… Ready… you sure? Ready to hear the answer… here it goes:

Work 70 Hours a week.

That’s right. Work 70 hours a week and that’s the difference between roughly 34 bucks an hour (40 hrs) and 17$. “But Ben, I would never do that!” Ooooh… That’s what you say.

Many of you are doing it now. Throw out the misguided idea of work-life im-balance balance. Dump your misconception of “I am making this $$ a year.” Think outside the box. I am sure you are already saying “no way”. Here’s how you are doing it and how it adds up.

• 1hr = When you get up in the morning and after you clean up, first thing you do is check email from work, colleagues and vendors.
• 8hrs = You work at the gig.
• 1hr = You don’t go out for lunch, instead you catch up on stuff.
• 2hr (at least) = After you get home your working on it.
• Now multiply all that 6X. Because in reality you have so much of a connection between your personal and professional life, contacts and colleagues that you even take it home over the weekends.

Grand estimated total/average result: (1 + 8 + 1 + 2 hrs) X 6 days= 72 hrs a week. This is all before you take out how much you are losing to taxes, benefits, etc.

Question is: Is it all worth it?

First off 65K is a great salary for most people. As stated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average American worker only makes around 34K a year and that’s a long shot. I would venture to say it is closer to 25k. So if you are making 65K a year woo haa for you. That’s still better than the average American worker makes. But does the above scenario and equation fit your situation?

At the same time you have to ask yourself, is the amount of time you are putting in worth it? Is it worth the time? Am I adding value, getting something out of it or am I just working harder and not smarter.

It’s so common… But like Trish McFarlane has asked… have we all been brain washed. Don’t question the hours. Don’t question the salary. Question your own sanity!

What are your thoughts? Do you enjoy what you do so much that you can’t get away or are you falling victim and can’t get away?