Out of Office
And a better alternative to gift guides.
I’m writing to you with a little travel keyboard and an iPad. I’ve gotten through most of my to do list, or else put things on a “to don’t list1”, my computer is turned off and stashed in the dark depths of a closet2 for the next six weeks. I’m in the penumbra before my sabbatical, a pause in Lisbon to wrap up work, halve my jet lag, and ease my way into adventure before I fly to India for five weeks of solo travel.
A couple of clients have expressed looking forward to the “playbook” for taking extended time off. I’m sure I will, but a few thoughts and resources in the meantime:
A piece to think through basics of paid leave, of any type:
I spoke to
recently about her decision to take an “adult gap year”: a full year step back from most of her business. Lots to ponder here!But I do have some thoughts on the cusp of completely signing off:
blowing things off On making more aligned decisions on what to finish before a sabbatical.
One of the side effects of this whole sabbatical plan is a very strong before/after binary that accelerated (mostly subconsciously) my plans and what I heaped on my plate the past quarter or so. There was a lot of “this must get done before Sabbatical!”
Now, a sabbatical is a bit like a portal if you want it to be. I don’t really know what to expect on the other side; I haven’t had a break from thinking about business for more than two consecutive weeks in a dozen years. Often enough my two weeks vacations have been interrupted by something or other that had me attempting to barricade doors to various corners of my brain, and mostly failing. A clean slate sounds really nice.
But in the grand scheme of things, especially when it overlaps with a company-wide, two-week winter break, six weeks is a blip. These ideas that I had to get this, that, and another thing done before this trip? My own bullshit for sure.
The thing about being far from home for this transition period to wrap up work, is that it’s subverted my usual bag of tricks. If I were home, it’d be easy to grind out all the things I told myself needed to be complete. Here? In the bright light of the Lisbon sunshine, my deranged intentions are rendered absurd.
To be clear, everything I owe clients and my team is done. It’s my own creative projects that I must wave the white flag on. Because of course, right?
We talked about this on my last client call yesterday— we set ourselves big goals and targets for our creative work because that’s how we muster the will to get to it. At the same time, we never know how long a big creative project will take.
If willpower begs us to push on and push through, willingness entreats us to receptivity, a capacity to listen to the self and the signals along the way and an ability to take no for an answer:
I’ve leaned into willingness and swallowed some nos. Two zines are not done— maybe the most public thing I thought I’d finish, already vexed by delays. Some secret projects. Writing bits. I’ll be back, with a rested brain, many stories to tell.
It’s easy to be on our bullshit at home, in the context of our routines; so my advice for extended leave takers is to do a transition week, somewhere else, to slough off any remaining and unnecessary coulda-shouldas.
A Better Strategy to Gift Guides.
We seem to have hit peak gift guide this year?
I actually love a gift guide, the more ridiculous and impractical the better.
However, my theory of gifting is that you don’t need a guide (except maybe Miranda July’s), just a small list of impeccable go to’s that are endurable year-over-year. There are people who are easy to please, but I calibrate to the impossible giftees, which means never agonizing over what to give. You may have a different trio, this is mine:
Soap from Saipua: hefty, beautifully wrapped bars of olive oil soap; pair with a soap dish for an unimpeachable gift.
Fuck This and Fuck That cups from my friend Dustin of Ceramic & Theory. I’m also partial to the fuuuuuuuuck version In pink as well.
Aside from that, my other advice is to flee the country and exempt yourself from gifting altogether. Christmas Day is the best day of the year to fly in my opinion; it’s relatively quiet, everyone’s in a cheery mood.
I’ll be scheduling some re-run emails, a greatest hits mixtape of sorts while I’m out. Until then: rage on, calmly.
This phrase was gifted to me from a cab driver years ago on a late New Year’s Eve night. I shared my Slogan Practice with the driver, he shared his practice of making a new “To Don’t” list every year.
It was last turned off approximately 578 days ago.