Let's look at why you should "check out" on vacation. I want to encourage you to try.
1. It's very likely you're exhausted, or at best, just plain tired. Trying to do work and do vacation isn't at all restful. It's more juggling. You won't return to work feeling rested. You'll return feeling disappointed and still tired.
2. Your family could use some time with you. Just you. Not you and your phone, not you and your iPad. Not looking at the top of your head, but seeing the whites of your eyes. Your family needs to feel important. That will require you to choose them. They need you to actively and purposefully choose to spend time with them and not juggle them with your colleagues and clients. That just makes them one of your "many". They want to be "the ones you chose".
3. You aren't that great of a multi-tasker anyway. No one really is. So you try to do work on vacation and you don't do your best for your job and you don't do your best for your family. That's a lose-lose idea. By dropping the work for a week, you get to win with your family. Because you will return rested, you can go back and win at work too. That's a win-win idea.
4. When your brain is buried in stuff, your creativity is choked out. When you are constantly looking at emails and tasks, you're not tapping into your best creativity. I'm not saying you need to take a vacation and do finger painting. Although that sounds pretty darned fabulous to me. I'm talking about clearing the clutter to think creatively about anything. To generate new ideas, new projects, new passion for your work.
5. Let's start looking at your legacy. When you are old and gray, you won't remember the project you finished for Mr. Client while on your balcony pretending to watch your kids play in the pool. You will remember seeing your daughter finally master the handstand in the pool and to see her beam with pride knowing you were actually watching.......the whole time. Time is a tricky little bugger. You think you have mountains of it. Until you don't and it's like sand slipping through your fingers and you're begging to get some back. They love you. They need you. Build the kind of memories that will make you both proud. It's just a week or two. You all deserve it, crave it, need it.
