Prove Me Wrong: It’s Okay to Work While You’re on Vacation

Welcome to Simple Joe. I’m glad you’re here.

In this Wildcard Wednesday episode of Simple Joe, I’m asking you to prove me wrong: is it okay to work a little bit while you’re on vacation? I just got back from vacation, and while I recorded Simple Joe every day, I don’t really think of the podcast as work because it’s something I genuinely enjoy and a creative outlet for me. The harder question is what happens when I open the laptop for “just 45 minutes,” check email, answer a few questions, and convince myself that staying connected actually helps me relax. We look at research on psychological detachment from work, the importance of real recovery time, and the uncomfortable possibility that sometimes I’m checking in because I want people to notice that I’m still engaged. That gets even more complicated because I’m a leader who tells my own team to disconnect completely when they’re on vacation. I talk through boundaries, why we work when we’re supposedly off, whether helping a coworker is really so different from helping a friend, and whether a little intentional work can coexist with a real vacation. I’m still not sure there’s a perfect answer, but I do know this: if I believe the people who work for me deserve a real vacation, maybe I need to give myself permission to take one too.

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