Vacation Tip ~ Leave Yourself A Time Buffer
It took long enough, but I finally had a light bulb moment when it comes to all the stress of getting ready for a vacation.
Normally I try to maximize every second before leaving on a trip. Deep down I think I always feel a bit guilty about heading out of town (silly I know, but what can I say) and so I feel the need to compensate by working insanely long hours the week before we leave and right up to the very last second before departure. This usually results in frazzled and cranky mommy and me swearing to myself that I’ll never go on vacation again because it’s just too stressful.
What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So when it comes to prepping for a vacation, it’s safe to say, that I’m fairly insane. (Gary, when you read this post, please resist the urge to comment further on my levels of insanity. 🙂 )
This time I decided to try something different to break the insanity cycle.
Our flight left on Saturday morning so I decided to have everything wrapped up on Thursday to leave myself Friday as a buffer. By golly it worked! I started finalizing things on Thursday with my clients and tying up all of the loose ends as if it was my last day before leaving. Now in reality I didn’t get it all done on Thursday, there were a few things that needed to be done on Friday and 2 last minute appointments that had to happen before I left. But the great part was that I had the time for the appointments and was able to finish up the final things without being stressed or working until 3am.
Ahhhh… This was the first vacation that I have gone on in a LONG time where I actually felt relaxed and prepared. I showed up at the airport ready to have fun.
So break the cycle. It doesn’t apply only to vacations. Build buffers into your days and plan for things to take longer than you think they will. (they do anyway so this way you will be ready for it.) You will find yourself feeling much more relaxed and not needing to burn the midnight oil as much.
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