Have you ever needed a vacation from your vacation?

I certainly have. I’ve gone on some amazing vacations over the years, but I’ve also gone on some vacations that have left me worse for the wear. A few years ago, I went on vacation that wasn’t restful at all. In fact, when I came back people actually said to me, “Mark, you look really tired,” which was actually their polite way of saying, “Mark, you look absolutely wrecked, and not in a good way.” There were several things present on that particular vacation that led me to a conclusion — not all vacations are refreshing. The lesson I learned was that taking a vacation can actually be worse than work unless you fiercely protect it.

I have found that bad vacations (or the bad aspects of vacations) all have common traits that we must not allow. They are as follows:1. Poor planning — The US Travel Association recently did a study and found that a vacation planned at least one month ahead of time was a good predictor of stress reduction. Statistically speaking, poorly planned vacations actually have the reverse effect of what a vacation ought to do — to press the RESET button on yourself. 2. Work — This should be an obvious one, but I have been guilty of having my mobile number on my out-of-office message. I have found that

Poor planning — The US Travel Association recently did a study and found that a vacation planned at least one month ahead of time was a good predictor of stress reduction. Statistically speaking, poorly planned vacations actually have the reverse effect of what a vacation ought to do — to press the RESET button on yourself.

Work — This should be an obvious one, but I have been guilty of having my mobile number on my out-of-office message. I have found that generally people are respectful of your time off, unless you are a key player who is working on something critical or time sensitive. Here are some ways to handle this:

• Bake vacation into your project plans whenever possible
• Give everyone (who needs to know) a heads-up, well in advance, when you will be out of the office
• Set out-of-office messages and make sure your calendar is blocked out with your time off
• Designate a responsible person to be your back-up, put their name and contact information on your out-of-office message, give them clear instructions, and then let them do it without checking in on them (they have to feel you trust them).

If you are spending a lot of time on YOUR vacation working, answering email, and engaged in conference calls, those you are with will not be too happy with you, and chances are you won’t come back refreshed, reset, and recharged. I will say this though, if you’ve gone on vacation, and you need to resolve something before you can unplug again, resolve it quickly, and then unplug. Otherwise, you’ll be thinking about it during your vacation, you won’t fully enjoy it, and you’ll come back frustrated that you spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars to be away, when all you did was work or think about work. I admit I do bring a laptop with me on vacation, not to work necessarily, but just in case that unavoidable emergency comes up. It’s like packing extra underwear — just in case.

Difficult people — When you vacation, you need to be around people who are going to be refreshing to you. After all, this is YOUR time away, and it may be your only time during the year to do so. One difficult person has the power to ruin a vacation if you allow them – I’ve seen it happen more than once. A difficult person is like having it rain on your vacation every day. Over the years, my wife and I have vacationed with many people — family, friends, and even strangers, so we have found what works for us in terms of finding the perfect vacation buddies. We do our own personal vetting of people. We account for dietary needs, family dynamics, child ages, behavior, and influence, the speed and hyper/hypo-activity of different people we will be with, etc. My advice, would be to vacation with people who you would enjoy “living with” for that period of time — otherwise go it alone, you may be just as happy.

Lingering Stress — On a recent vacation, my oldest daughter observed that we, her parents, spent the first 2-3 days discussing an extended family issue before we were able to fully decompress and enjoy the rest of our vacation. In the same way that work was there when we returned, so was the issue, so it wasn’t truly worth all the airtime we gave it.

Strict schedules — I love entertainment, especially when I’m away. So, on another vacation, we experimented with going to shows every single night. What this meant was that our time on the beach or on our excursions would get shortened. While we had fun, the strictness in our schedule didn’t allow us to simply be easy and relax at our pace. The lesson I learned for future trips was that we would have a plan for what we wanted to do while on vacation, but leave room for flexibility. Leaving expectations a little loose is not a bad thing on vacation.

Packed schedules — a close cousin to the strict schedule is an overly ambitious one. We did one vacation where we saw relatives in 4 different states in a week, and we came home totally wrecked. The lesson for me was to keep vacation agendas easy and reasonable, and not to pack in too much extra activity — unless you are in a new place, and the plan is to do and see as much as possible.

Negativity, ingratitude — a vacation, especially one that is sponsored by paid time off, is something to be truly grateful for when you consider work conditions just 100 years ago where a paid vacation was completely unheard of for the average worker. For as much as you’re paying to go away, for the fact that this is one of your few opportunities to be away, for the sake of your sanity, happiness, peace of mind and well being, on vacation, there should be a zero tolerance policy for negativity, ingratitude, and complaining. Instead of correcting yourself and others, use the time more effectively by actively focusing on the “good things of the day”. Make it a game, go around and ask people what they enjoyed most, and offer a prize for the most creative or different “good thing”.

Question: What kind of things should you leave at home while on vacation? You can leave a comment by clicking here.