This is the editorial from my latest newsletter, subscribe here.
I’ve been taking some holiday this week, so not too many new articles to share (in the newsletter) with you. I’ve added a couple to the end of the newsletter from last year that I think deserve your attention again alongside a look at Swift and Android N to keep you up to date.
This week was the first time I’ve taken a holiday in a while and it took me a couple of days to stop constantly checking for email, Slack, Twitter and other notifications to see if I had missed anything important.
I have never been great at switching off, and to be honest I slightly enjoy being on edge, but it’s a skill I am trying to get better at.
So, in this week where many of us have been on Holiday, I’d love to know how you switch off (literally and figuratively) to take a break from work and distractions? Let me know below or on Twitter and I for one will try your suggestions.
I think I’d cease to function if I did that - that said, I never take work related device with me. As for switching off, it’s amazing how two cats can distract you from things.
Each to his own, I guess, but work email is only ever a login away.
I teach some managers who, when on holiday, call the company every morning to make sure things are running smoothly. It seems to work for them, but this one call would put work right back in my head (and defeat the point of going away).
Same here. (OK, I take a Kobo e-reader, but that doesn’t really count - and I don’t connect it anyway.)
At home, I just turn everything off in the evening. After dinner, life consists mainly of jigsaws, knitting and DVDS. And conversation with Running Bear, of course.
Every once in a while, I like to go out with my girlfriend to see new sights, or eat in some fancy restaurant. I just drop everything, and enjoy the moment.
Other than that I take all kinds of breaks.
With the summer coming, there are other plans for a big break, maybe I’ll post about it later.
I take a drive, its amazing how your mind is going a mile a minute the first day and how by day 4 you are breathing again. Find its important to stop checking email/voice mail the second day. It is important to have someone you trust that people can get hold of, who can get hold of you.
I have started to seriously take up hiking this Spring and have been in a better mood than I have in years. I’ve hiked off an on for the past few years, mostly just a trail there, or a trail here. But this year I’ve done them every weekend and am trying to get progressively longer and longer.
It’s the closest thing to meditation I’ve found.
Running or just walking normally on a road is miserable for me. Running I’m just constantly thinking “this hurts, I hate running, my legs hurt, I can’t breath”, but doing trails makes me focus just enough to not fall that it completely quiets my mind. Plus, I get to be out away from technology and people and see amazing places.
Me and my wife will do our first backpacking trip this weekend. I’m really excited, because I’ve been stockpiling gear for about the last 3 months. It’ll be a short one, 1 night along a 9 mile point-to-point trail about 6 miles out, then 3 miles the next morning. Or possibly a 12 mile loop trial where we camp in the middle. We haven’t decided, but either way it’ll just be one night.
I also started Geocaching just yesterday just around town. It was pretty fun and enjoyed it, but I think my wife enjoyed it way more than I did. So that’s something we’ll probably add to activities while we’re out on the trails. Seems like it’ll be a prefect good reason to take a break and enjoy our surroundings.
This is going to sound weird but watching technical training video on pluralsight. It just makes me forget about the work and learning new tech is always fun for me.
I feel the same way when I take a holiday or a break from work, it comes with being driven and a workaholic which to be honest I am not sorry about because I love what I do and it drives me. But it’s very important to take a break from work and that too without feeling guilty. I recently stumbled upon an article about how important it is to take a break for being productive. Hence reading it, took away a lot of my guilt. So when I do take a break or a holiday, the first thing I do is, unlink all my email accounts so that I don’t get the notifications or feel pushed to check out the emails, you can also mute the work groups on whatsapp if you have any and take a break without any guilt. Trust me there isn’t much you are missing and if you are that worried about work than you’ll catch up easily. So take a holiday, go for a body massage and spend the day without any stress, you’ll be a lot more fresh and productive when you go back.
Just a heads up that I’m in the process of launching The Walking Dev - a repository that’ll contain resources, leaderboards, posts, best practices and other tips and tricks on getting healthy as a developer.
I encourage you to register to indicate interest, and I’ll ping you as soon as it’s launched! Related discussion also here.
