Not Exactly Out of Office

In the last 4 years of doing social media full time, we haven’t once taken a vacation and completely unplugged.

There have been so many times when I want to put our out of office email on (to be honest, we don’t even have one and wouldn’t know how to create one at this point) and just be present in the moment, soaking up the beach and precious family time. But we’ve never done it. Why is that?

As a content creator, is there a time to ever truly unplug when everything is potential content? I think for me, there’s always a small fear that I might miss out on an opportunity if I completely turn everything off. An important email might come through that is time sensitive, or what if I miss the chance to post something that catches people’s eyes? When posting about your life is your job, there is always an opportunity.

These are the irrational thoughts that come to me when we take vacations. In reality, I know our manager can handle any email we might not get to, and I know that posting on social media can always wait for another day, no matter what frantic thought flies through my mind in the moment. Nothing is so important that it can’t wait.

But alas, this just wasn’t our week yet.

I don’t know if I would even call this beach trip a vacation per se. We drove down because the kids are on fall break, so it’s definitely a vacation for them, but I’ve been on my laptop every day editing and responding to the regular batch of never ending emails (which, make no mistake: I’m extremely grateful for!! I love being busy and all the aspects of running a small business), so in a way, this is business as usual for PJ and I. He’s been working on the beach cottage lining up contractors to work on it in the coming months so we can get it finished.

We are hoping to take an actual vacation this fall, so who knows what will happen then?

And while our out of office didn’t get turned on this trip, I’m determined to make it happen in the near future. I’m talking no emails, no social media, maybe even no phone.

Maybe.