Vacation Perspectives

Trying to run two businesses sometimes has its challenges. Planning and conducting gay tours to South Africa on one hand, while deploying a team of executive coaches on the other, has periodic challenges. What’s the best way to stay organized? Savvy Navigator is a huge fan of Barbara Hemphill, a professional organizer and the publisher of the Taming the Paper Tiger organizing system. He’s used the system for nearly a decade, stays totally organized, and also thoroughly enjoys Barbara’s musings. In a recent newsletter, she has some excellent perspectives on vacation:

1. Always have a specific vacation in your future.  Recently a colleague shared a practice he learned from a friend and has implemented in his life. Before your vacation is over, block out the dates on your calendar for the next vacation.  Great advice – and I’ve already scheduled next year! The vacation planning experience itself can be a rewarding exercise as you explore all the exciting places in the world you can go – some of them very close to home!
2. Spend more time experiencing your vacation than capturing it. One of the things I realized was that every time I was trying to take a photograph of an experience, I missed the experience.  Of course, I wanted memories – but not at the expense of missing the action.  My solution was to block out specific time on each segment of the trip for photography, and enjoy the rest.  Extra payoff:  fewer photographs to organize when I returned!
3. Allow space in your vacation for doing nothing.  One of the biggest joys of this vacation for me was not having any appointments.  Although there were plenty of opportunities to schedule side excursions ahead of time, I decided to just wait and see what I felt like doing.  (Of course, I took the risk of missing something I really wanted to do, but there were so many options, it didn’t matter.) I don’t know how to use words to express the peace I experienced just sitting on the stateroom deck, watching the whales bounding and the glaciers “calving.” 
4. Avoid the crowd whenever possible. One of the things I discovered was that staying on shipboard on a day we were in dock offered great opportunities. Prices at the spa were reduced and so were the crowds – but the customer service increased because the experts were less rushed. 
5. Pack light!  The purpose of a vacation for me is to experience freedom.  That’s difficult to do if you’re lugging around lots of “stuff” that you in fact never use.  In fact, my traveling partner decided that the next time she took a trip, she would take fewer clothes than she needed and an empty suitcase, so she could buy things along the way.  Great idea!
6. Use your vacation as an opportunity to share time with the people you love.  This was the greatest joy of all about my vacation – my husband, my mother, and my best friend for two weeks.  It doesn’t get any better as far as I’m concerned. What’s especially heartwarming is that we will enjoy it again and again in the years to come as we share our memories with each other and with friends and family.  (Note:  This doesn’t mean you have to spend every minute together.)
7. Be sure to say “thank you” to the people who made your vacation possible.  In my case, a big hug to my husband who made this dream a reality for us, and to our travel agent who did an awesome job of helping select exactly the right cruise experience for us.  I also owe a thank you to the great people we met along the way, from the cabin steward who sent me home with a suitcase of clean clothes – imagine! – to the interesting people (business owners, ironically!) who shared our dining table.  Finally, it was indeed a blessing to leave my business behind for two weeks, knowing that the HPI team could handle anything that happened – and they did!