Here’s a familiar scenario: We find a rare day on our calendars where there are no important meetings and obligations. It’s a golden window of opportunity to take a day off from work. We take that day off, but emerge from the day-off feeling as if we’ve not accomplished meaningful outside of work, or as if we’ve rested enough.
Why? Work-related texts are still flooding our phones, demanding our immediate attention. Or there are some complex problems we haven’t figured out, and we can’t take our minds off those problems even as we try to relax.
The ability to fully disconnect is important in the modern workplace, especially when it demands that knowledge workers and managers tune in 24/7. By disconnecting temporarily, we are able to take that vital step back to see the bigger picture and to review if we are doing things right. We’d then return to our jobs a lot more refreshed, and with deeper perspective.
Having experimented with a couple of strategies in an attempt to desperately disconnect from an always-on work culture, I found that the following strategies work their magic:
- Identify burning issues that you’ll need to resolve before your day-off. Any unfinished business or unsolved problem will likely linger on our minds even as we try to relax on a recliner by the sea.
- Identify somebody to as a covering firefighter to ward off the daily humdrum of urgent but less important issues. This strategically accomplishes two things – it not only gives you the psychological safety of knowing that there is someone taking care of the office while you’re away, your covering colleague would also be able to finish off some of these housekeeping, administrative tasks for you.
- The night before the day-off, structure and timebox the day. Chances are if we don’t plan our day out, the day gets hijacked by a barrage of unfulfilling and unimportant tasks. We then finish the day, drained, feeling as if the day-off wasn’t worth it.
- If you really have to get some work done, assign 1-2 hours to finish off whatever you need to do. Don’t let the work clog your mind and seep into the rest of your precious day. I found that allotting 30 minutes to clear my inbox early in the morning and just before bedtime really helps me protect the rest of the day.
- Figure out what activities revitalize you, and schedule those activities. Even a leisurely trip to the supermarket to intentionally choose and pick groceries can be scheduled for it to be reserved as a priority. Scheduling my workouts and reading times helped me protect those times, and allowed me to derive more fulfilment from my day-off.
Taking a fulfilling, protected, and intentional day-off requires preparation. But it’s entirely worth it.
Working Woke 