Take your
vacation. Sometimes you just have to shut it all down and undertake a change of
scenery. If you stay home you always have some sort of routine task to consume
your time. It is healthy and good for your overall production to use that leave
that your company provides you, if you are so lucky, to benefit your mental
health.
Get up in
the morning to a different day. Sleep all day if that is what you want to do. Just
to see that the same 24 hour roll out on a new day takes on a little different
slant away from home. There is nothing wrong with sitting on a porch and
looking at a mountain off on the distance, hearing a river run constantly, hear
the surf pound all day and all night. Just mixing it up brings renewal.
Surround
yourself with loved ones. Yes, those are the same people that drive you nuts at
home. However, they will look and seem differently to you in new surroundings.
Talk to them before, during and after a trip. This will make your overall
relationship with them a little taller as you share a journey.
Read a good
book with all that extra time you have. It never fails that a book lends you a
new perspective on things. Sit and daydream. It is amazing what sorts of ideas
your mind will spontaneously produce when it has the time to roam.
My family, just
a few weeks ago, spent a week together in the Great Smokey Mountains. There are
16 of us. We stayed near Bryson City in three different mountain cabins. They
were located in a 20 mile radius of my wife and me. We also had local relatives
in that area that we got to see. There was lots of hiking, tubing, whitewater
rafting, picnicking, shopping, eating together, sightseeing, visiting and just
plain being lazy. We have been back for 6 weeks now and I cannot help thinking
about various elements of that trip. I hear the same thing from children and
grandchildren.
During the
thirty years that I worked for DuPont there were many different trips I took
with work colleagues. We went to some pretty interesting places and
participated in team building activities. The interaction spurned many unique
discussions and new approaches to our business.
There is no
more important team than your family. You need to get off together and do some
team building now and then. It pays dividends and fosters many wonderful ideas
and fresh takes on relationships, interaction and approaches to solving
problems.
