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mikeal / self-care

Discussion repo for developers to share their self-care routines
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Am I the only person that sucks at vacations? #10

Open mikeal opened 5 years ago

mikeal commented 5 years ago

I’ve gotten good at taking breaks and even a full day here other there but I’m still just terrible at real vacations.

I often don’t know what to do with myself and end up taking on other activities like it’s my new job. When I finally get home I’m usually more exhausted than I am from a busy work week.

casconed commented 5 years ago

Until very recently I found it very hard to take vacation time lasting more than a day or two without feeling guilty for taking it. I took my first actual vacation (where I travelled without a work computer, sat out scheduled meetings, etc) in over 10 years this past fall, and for the first couple days it was a real struggle to not compulsively check in via Slack or email

leonardiwagner commented 5 years ago

It sounds like a parading shift is missing on your vacations, what works for me is traveling to somewhere with a different culture or doing something REALLY new such as skydiving, attending to a big concert, camping.. even when I dislike the idea at first or think "ok, that's not me" after doing it :joy:

Anything that helps me to remember that life is much bigger than I usually think daily and the problems aren't that big and they can wait!

fed135 commented 5 years ago

For me, vacation is often time spent catching up on the house's backlog of work. Renovation, cleaning, tending to this and that. I can't be the only one feeling like they don't have enough time outside of work to invest back into improving their quality of life.

ahmadnassri commented 5 years ago

I'm reading this while on vacation.

you're not the only one. on this trip, I have:

I'm only half way through my vacation!

I don't know what the answer is to better "disconnect" during vacation, but I am contempt, which makes it a non-issue for me, I enjoy doing things, and the things I end up doing while on vacation are just different things or things I don't get to do in other times... so that makes it "good".

at least that's my justification 🤷‍♂️

matthewpoer commented 5 years ago

I often don’t know what to do with myself and end up taking on other activities like it’s my new job.

That hits home. I end up with mental to-do lists because I don't want to get caught writing them down.

Today's to-do list includes:

Keep trying though. I usually have a lot of trouble, but somehow for our last "stay-cation" a month or so ago, I managed to check my phone no more than maybe once per day and only sent out one email for the week. It felt like a pretty big success.

For me, vacation is often time spent catching up on the house's backlog of work. Renovation, cleaning, tending to this and that. I can't be the only one feeling like they don't have enough time outside of work to invest back into improving their quality of life.

Oh ... yeah, are we counting that? Apparently I'm a professional homeowner with mildly developed plumbing, hvac, electrical and carpentry skills. Plus landscaping labor. The list of repairs, upgrades, changes, etc. from the at-home Boss is much longer than anything any employer would dream of giving me 😆

rauno56 commented 5 years ago

You are definitely not the only one.

I'm travelling in my van and working remotely far away from my home and work country and that has helped me a lot. I have plenty of time here and I don't have to rush anywhere really. Still... first 4 weeks were like a boot camp. Getting from one hiking trailhead to another, spending hours on the phone and behind a computer researching the best places to visit. At some point it hit me - I haven't found time to read even a page of a book. Meaning that I have had less "downtime" than at home, which is exactly why I decided to have the trip in the first place!

For me, it just took time to get to an agreement with myself that it's totally fine to think the whole thing through and to do nothing except sit in my van the whole day and even though, after 7 weeks I haven't had one of such days, I'm a lot more chilled about the experience here. And that has helped to see and learn about myself a lot. It's a new skill.

So if this post has to come with a recommendation: Take it easy, give yourself time to re-learn plugging out, try a vacation in a place where coming by a good quality internet connection is rare and stay physically active. Simplest ways to kill boredom for me is my phone or laptop, having some activities helps to not fall into the "easy way out".

MikeMcQuaid commented 5 years ago

Same! I try to have one "leave my laptop at home" vacation a year which helps a bit.

sashafirsov commented 5 years ago

Left laptop and got bored to death. Perhaps it is a diagnosis. As result, tried to do retrospective analysis on my projects and activities. What has lost my interest, what is still hanging in air, what to focus on next...

Result was a complete rethink of portals, CMS, API gateways concepts, followed by on-paper bus. requirements, architecture and design. Kept the brain busy whole week while enjoying the whale cubs petting. Well... when back to work the development of designed scale been shifted far away and I am back to JS frameworks. Not sure whether the vacation notes will have much use further but definitely loved the process.