sabbatical reflections: going offline
26 Jan 2024i think some of my most significant lessons from this sabbatical were in the ramp into and out of it. i have never taken this amount of time (4 weeks) off in the middle of regular working times. i’ve had 3 or 4 weeks off during a time when lots of other people were also taking time off (like during school summer vacations or adding a week or two to the regular two weeks off i got from a job over winter break). but taking 4 weeks off during regular work time was new. not only that, the 4 weeks i took off happened during some of my busiest time of the year as a consultant: fall. it’s been my experience the last few years of consulting that as people come back from summer time, the amount of requests and also attention to ongoing projects goes way up.
all that is to say: going offline was so fucking intense for me! it was just so new for me to intentionally pause everything i was doing for a month knowing that i was going to come back to it later. in some ways it felt even harder than doing just simple exit transitions, like leaving a job. ‘cause when i leave a job, i just have to figure out what ends (and how to end it) and what continues (and who picks up what continues and how). but for this, i had to figure out how to put it down for just the 4 weeks and then pick it back up.
this looked a bunch of different ways depending on what the work was. the options mostly looked like:
- some projects needed to have a bunch done in advance so things could proceed smoothly while i was gone
- some needed to just take a slow down while i was away because i was a key and irreplaceable player
- some work needed to be handed off to someone in the interim because it couldn’t stop
- other work could go on with my absence not being that significant so all that was needed was a some communication and a heads up
after i’d looked through all my work and organizing projects to see which things were which, then i could do all the work it took for each one to be in good place while i was away.
and, just to be clear, it felt absolutely necessary to have the support of my operations manager, tanzanite, to get all the stuff done: thank you, tanz! paying for operations support is one of the best business decisions i’ve ever made. anyways, what felt key here was having someone who could hold some of the work pieces while i was away and also having an objective eye to look at my work projects and help me discern what was needed on each one.
in the end, the simplest way to describe what i learned in this going offline process was that i figured out how to level up my regular process of going offline for holidays. now that i’ve done it once, i feel much more capable of doing it again. and, honestly? i love that for myself. it turns out, everything doesn’t fall apart if i take a break. some things are impacted, for sure! and it’s ok. i knew that consciously, but having had the embodied experience of it, i trust it way more now.
the next time i take a break this size, hopefully i’ll be feel ready and more easeful about getting offline. and then next time i take a break larger than this (which i hope will be for a kiddo), i’ll have this experience to level up from! woot.
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