I am so ready for a vacation.
(It really hasn’t been that long since our last vacation; we traveled in December. Amelia Island and Philadelphia; it was great! And less than 3 months ago! But still, somehow I’m feeling Very Ready. I think the past few weeks have taken a lot out of me.)
All that said, I feel like I will feel much MORE ready for a vacation if I get all of the nagging tasks currently gnawing at me done before we leave!
Here’s the time I have to work with:
TONIGHT –> Will probably get home ~5:45ish.
THURSDAY –> Podcast recording stuff and Planning By Season ~8:30 – 1pm; then “free” 1 pm – 4:45 pm; possibly 7-8 pm in car could also be work time
FRIDAY –> clinical day w patients through day, picking up kids from aftercare at 5:30ish because our nanny is off. I have work meeting too so . . . there will not be much extra time available. But the evening is free.
SATURDAY –> free all day though kids have some activities and we have to finish packing and probably go to REI to fill in a few small ski apparel gaps (JOSH GOT ALL THE SKI GEAR TOGETHER AND ALREADY STARTED PACKING which is . . . honestly very amazing and I was impressed. I dislike packing quite a bit.)
SUNDAY –> travel. PS: leaving Sunday / returning Saturday is my new favorite configuration for a weeklong trip. I LOVE LOVE LOVE having this buffer.
HERE IS WHAT I WANT TO GET DONE:
Podcasts
- Get all BOBW episodes queued up –> Tomorrow
- Get final BLP episode (the 4/1 ep) recorded –> Tomorrow
- Get all April ads recorded –> Tomorrow
Taxes
- Upload all tax documents to our accountant (we tend to file for an extension but they need the documents anyway) –> Start tomorrow if time (which I probably will not have) + Saturday
Family Stuff
- Finalize date for summer trip so we can maybe even have fun booking/planning said trip while on our current trip (I mean hey – why not? We will have down time.) –> Friday night or Saturday
- Help Josh finish rest of call schedule for spring (maybe into summer?) –> Friday night or Saturday
- Finalize remaining few weeks of camp –> Saturday (though actually could do this while on trip one afternoon)
- Ensure application for school switch is all complete (waiting on one current teacher to fill out form) + schedule interview –> Just have to wait until done, then will call to schedule interview (I don’t control the timeline here)
- Update YNAB (I never did February’s audit so this is a MESS and I really rely on this so needs to happen) –> Saturday
Inboxes
- INBOX ZERO my gmail. This won’t be ideal because then I will get a million responses while away but there are all sorts of requests/scheduling attempts just flapping in the wind and I have to get back to current –> Will start tonight and do it in gaps of time hopefully finish by end of Saturday. I don’t want to do this on the plane.
- EPIC inbox zero. This is, as usual, my tidiest inbox so should be easily doable by end of day Friday; will put away messages up too. –> Friday; away messages up by end of work day
I am kind of sad that some of my bigger annual goals (estate planning! writing! organizing!) have had to be put on hold but hey – there are more than 9 months left in 2024. I am not out of time yet.
(I seriously think once this school $(*#@&$ is settled I will feel 8 million times better. I did officially tell our current school and today sent an email explaining my reasoning which was oddly therapeutic.)
((I have improved my call week attitudes and behavior so I guess my next step for the upper echelon of call week mastery is to figure out how not to have everything pile up in this manner . . . maybe I’ll get there someday!))
(((I have given up on strength training right now and I hate that for me. Hope to resume in April.)))
Okay, now to write all of this in my planner and attack the last few patient notes and my inbox.
12 Comments
I felt the same sense of urgency needed a vacation before we went to China. I think the optimal vacation frequency is 2-2.5 month đ
Yet, after 9 days of doing nothing and shelved my brain, I’m still catching up with work, hopefully up-to-date by end of this week.
I read this as the optimal amount of vacation is 2-2.5 times per month đ I can get behind that, too!
Holidays are the best and yet I often get to the holiday and find it takes 2 days to unwind before I even start to enjoy it (and stop annoying my husband who has no issue!). Given your pre holiday to do list, plus a generally full life, do you find it takes time to transition? Any strategies you use?
Oof, feel similarly hectic. I’m making a post-it note door of what I need to do before the end of April, which is a sure sign that I’m stress spiralling. When things can no longer be contained in Notion/a piece of paper, and only a door will do! I keep reassuring myself that my son and husband are away for a Scouts sleepover Saturday, so I can work at the weekend if needs be.
I’m currently trying to rustle up volunteers for our school essentials hub (uniform, shoes, jackets)… and my goodness, in a school of 800 kids, surely I’d manage to fill 8 30-minute slots. I feel like an outlier as a FT working mum, so it’s not like it’s a school with parents with long commutes, etc.
A hint on the emails… for non-urgent stuff, can you delay send at staggered intervals so you don’t come back to loads of emails? I do this when I’m working at odd hours, or want something off my list but don’t want to seem too eager/train people to expect an immediate reply. I’m also a fan of a plane home email blast, some people think this ruins the relaxation feeling, but I like coming back to work with a bit of a cleaner slate.
Vacation pre-planning is so frantic! Especially when you throw tax stuff into the mix. I think we do a pretty good job of keeping tax stuff together so it isn’t a huge hassle to pull it together, but it still feels daunting.
How freeing it will be to have the school stuff handled.
Where are you guys going to ski this year? I completely agree with that trip cadence! For spring break we have been doing Saturday to Saturday and it is amazing.
Big Sky again đ We loved it so figured . . . let’s just do a repeat!
Just a thought on your comment of next step for call week being trying not to let things pile up in this mannerâŠIâm not someone who has to do call (thankfully) so maybe Iâm off base but: what if you pivot and instead the goal needs to be change your attitude/approach to the inevitable falling behind which necessarily must happen in order to make call week manageable? And perhaps part of that could be to have a âtwo-weekâ rule, so that you donât expect yourself to be caught up on all the things that just have to fall by the wayside to make call week manageable, until the end of the full week following end of call? And so like mentally when you have a week of call you can consider it to be impacting two weeks, not just one, and you arenât placing impossible expectations on yourself to jump back into it in, like, two days.
Or maybe even you need two FULL weeks after call to spread things out?
I really think itâs more a matter of managing expectations rather than expecting any more of yourself during call, which just sounds so brutal. Sleep deprivation and heightened alert time is not time to prioritize run of the mill life.
Related: maybe future vacation planning should take this post call week life admin buffer period into account? By my calculations you leave on vacation less than a week after call ended. Thatâs a lot! Though if anyone can do it, itâs you.
My two cents! Excited for you for your upcoming vacation!
So in theory I love this but in reality itâs a bit trickier since in the podcast world a lot of what I do has hard deadlines! And the vacation schedules are generally fixed by the school calendars but I agree this particular configuration wasnât ideal (could be worse though- good thing this week wasnât vacation!). A good reminder to really be mindful of that timing and maybe put more energy into getting ahead to pre-emptively leave call weeks and post call weeks as light and chill as possible!!!
You definitely need this vacation! But I know- getting ready for it is stressful. Especially when you’re going from Florida to a cold weather location and have ski gear for five people to organize! Sunday-Saturday is definitely a brilliant schedule. Good luck with it all! I’m sure once you actually get away, the trip will be amazing.
You have lots heaped on to your plate! Give yourself grace with the goals. Not happened yet doesn’t mean “given up”-you are reprioritizing in this busy season and the time will come for all those goals. Also remember that, just because a goal isn’t completed before the clock strikes midnight on 12/31 doesn’t mean you have to switch to all new goals!
I have recently switched to using academic planners instead of calendar year planners. I feel like I get my own secret new year during the summer when I have more bandwidth to plan and reset.
I know you love your quintile system and celebrating a fresh new start in January, but don’t put yourself on a countdown. Some goals can be started this year then continued into next year. You got this! Have a relaxing vacation. All the things will still be here when you return!
Thankfully I’m pretty kind to myself about unmet goals – I just decide to either move them forward or let them go! (I agree that if I wasn’t it could become a negative!)