One of the best perks about working in Japan was the incredible number of paid national holidays I had: 16 per year to be exact, and they were pretty evenly spaced so that almost every month had one. Combine that with school vacations and slow periods when classes were out of session, and I had a pretty sweet yearly calendar with a lot of paid time off.
Now fast forward a year: I’m back in the States, where I divide my time between finishing my Secret New Novel and doing freelance editing work to keep the bills paid. Much of my editing is flexible (as in, I can work on it when I want to), but I also do scheduled video calls with clients where we talk through issues they’re having. Some weeks, all of this work combined can make for a pretty tight schedule.
This begs a really, really important question: How is someone working a schedule like mine supposed to take time off?
Making Your Own Vacations Can Be Tough, But Doable
As I’ve said many times before on this blog, I live and die by my schedule book: I use it for planning personal and work events, tracking my daily and weekly To-Do lists, and noting long-term goals. It turns out, it’s also useful for planning vacations.
A few months ago, I talked with some international friends who wanted to come visit on a specific week in October. Of course I said they could stay with me and that I’d be glad to see them, but I was a little worried: Would I be able to take an entire week off to spend time with them, or would I be tied to the computer more than I wanted to?
It turns out that having that week blocked off in my calendar so far in advance was super-helpful. Not only did it prevent me from scheduling meetings or projects for that specific week, it helped me track my long-term plans for October and even November, since I knew I’d be taking an entire week off.
A few careful steps made my October week off possible:
- Not Scheduling Any Meetings: This one was a no-brainer: I asked all of my clients who requested video calls to meet either the week before, or the week after my vacation. While I expected some problems might arise with overcrowding my schedule, this was surprisingly easy, and didn’t lead to any conflicts.
- Finishing Bigger Projects Ahead of Time: I had three kind of sizeable projects I needed to finish around the week I’d be taking off. Two of them I finished beforehand, and one I pushed back to early November (which the client was very understanding about). Planning for these these bigger projects in advance DEFINITELY helped, and I’m glad I didn’t wait until the last minute.
- Telling Clients I’d Be Away: When making schedules or discussing plans with my clients via email, I simply told them that I was taking a week off from October 10-14th. This was especially important for one client who often sends me emails or questions that require a timely response, and even they understood without hesitation that I’d be unreachable during that time.
- Making Sure My Novel Revisions Were Going Well: I’m trying to keep a steady pace on revising the second draft of my Secret New Novel, so making good progress in September and early October ensures that taking a week off won’t put me too far behind.
- Scheduling This Week’s Blog Post Early: I know this may come as a shocker, but I don’t always post to this blog at seven a.m on Monday mornings (gasp!). Most weeks I write something the week before and schedule it for a Monday release, and this week I made sure to do the same.
There were, however, three things I couldn’t quite reschedule, which in my book, is OK:
- I Have to Teach My Online Class: I teach an online class one afternoon a week for a University MFA Program I won’t name (more on this later!), and before the semester started I laid out a pretty tight schedule I didn’t want to bend too much. Pushing back an entire week felt like a bit too much for both me and the students, so I decided to suck it up and teach as scheduled. Including prep, this will take up about three hours of time, and seemed like a decent tradeoff. I was sure to let my visiting friends know, and of course they were fine with it.
- Posting to This Blog: I’ll be taking off from blogging the week of October 17th since I won’t have anything to schedule, and I don’t think the universe will come to an end if Ido. Ideally, I’d have an extra post ready to go for just this type of occasion, so this is something I want to keep tabs on for the future for next time.
- Brief Daily Email Checks: Because I occasionally get messages that need a timely response (or where bad things could happen if I’m MIA for too long), I’ve resolved to do brief, daily email checks that will ideally take less than two minutes. Any unimportant messages will remain unopened, and any important ones will be quickly scanned and responded to, letting the person know I’ll handle the issue when I get back. (While I realize that an autoresponder could take care of this, I don’t want to annoy people with automated emails for a vacation this short, and want to stay open to super-small issues that might come up. Besides, it’s only two freakin’ minutes a day.)
And just like that, I’m set for a week off.
Final Thoughts: You Can Take Time Off Too If You Plan Ahead
I talk to a lot of people who would love to take an entire week off but aren’t sure their schedules will allow it. While I’ve had zero problems taking a day or two off with my current schedule, this was my first time planning a longer period off, and it was surprisingly easy. Ideally I wouldn’t have to teach my class and would have a blog post ready to go for the Monday I get back, but these are small potatoes and won’t affect much.
All in all, though, I’m looking forward to visiting with my old friends, seeing some local sights, and most importantly, taking a much-needed relaxation break to recharge my working batteries. I’m also looking forward to some renewed energy when I get back—assuming, of course, that the backlog isn’t too much ;-)