I get how hard it can be to fully step away from work, even when you know you need a break. From my own experiences, I’ll share some practical tips and strategies to help you protect your vacations and downtime. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a better handle on the mindset shifts and boundaries that’ll let you truly enjoy your time off. That way, you can come back feeling refreshed and ready to go—without the guilt or burnout. Taking the time to unplug is so important for your well-being and the long-term success of your business.
Listen on the player in this post or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
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Takeaways
- Avoid unfinished to-do lists: They can cause mental clutter and keep you in work mode during vacation.
- Don’t bring business guilt: Reframe downtime as an investment in your creativity and productivity.
- Avoid digital leashes: Set specific tech boundaries and remove distracting apps to stay disconnected.
- Set clear expectations: Over-communicate your availability and boundaries to your team, clients, and audience.
- Resist work temptation: Commit to being fully present and trust the systems you’ve put in place.
Resources Mentioned
Food Blog Photography by Jem Mantiri
Promote your food blogging services:Â www.eatblogtalk.com/audioclip
Megan’s recommended books and resources at eatblogtalk.com/books.
Transcript
Click for script.
EBT643 – 5 Things Not To Bring on Vacation as an Entrepreneur
Intro 00:01
Hey food bloggers. Thank you so much for joining me in this mindset and self-care focused episode here on Eat Blog Talk. One of the reasons I started a blog talk was to hold a space to talk about the importance of mindset and self-care. Being an entrepreneur can be a lot. If we are not taking care of ourselves, then getting actionable information about SEO Pinterest or whatever else is all moot. I will meet you back here every Wednesday to discuss various mindset and self-care topics. So you have the energy and space to tackle the rest.
Jem Mantiri 00:34
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Megan Porta 01:11
Food bloggers. Hello. How’s your week going? Thank you so much for tuning into this self care and mindset focused episode of Eat Blog Talk. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about five things not to bring on vacation as an entrepreneur. I was just telling my son the title of this episode as I was going to come record it, and he was thinking about like things you pack in your suitcase, but no, we’re going to talk about being an entrepreneur and five things you shouldn’t do on vacation. Before we get into those things, let’s first talk about the importance of vacation for entrepreneurs. There are so many great things about being an entrepreneur, right? We can set our own schedules. We can work on our own terms. We can make literally as much money as we want. You know all the reasons because you are an entrepreneur. So you know all of your personal reasons why you love being an entrepreneur, all of these things and more outweigh the downsides, in my opinion, but we should acknowledge one downside in particular, which is how truly difficult it is to turn off at least speaking for myself, here, we start our businesses out of a deep passion, usually, for what we do, and out of a deep desire for freedom for most of us. And I think when there’s this much passion involved in any pursuit, it’s easy to fully immerse ourselves in our businesses. There have been times in the past 14 years when it’s felt like I am my business. Megan is the business. The business is me, like it’s all one in the same and it’s really hard to split those identities. With a lot of intentional mindset work. I have been able to make a lot of progress with this in recent years, but I won’t lie, it has not been an easy road, even after all the work I put in to make sure there is a work Megan and a non work Megan, it’s still hard for me to turn it off at times. I am still trying to figure out how to approach vacation as an entrepreneur. It can be tough, which seems really silly when I say it, but you likely know what I’m talking about. You plan so much and you schedule beforehand so vacation can be super easy, or as easy as possible, only to get to your vacation and realize that your mind is still wired to think obsessively about work. What the heck?
Megan Porta 03:44
We just got home from a week long vacation. So this is all very fresh for me. Hence recording this episode. For this vacation. I literally could not have been more prepared in advance to not have anything work related to deal with or think about while we were on vacation, I scheduled everything out beforehand, blog posts, podcast episodes, emails, even Instagram reels, which I never do. I now have an awesome assistant who sweeps through my email every day, so I didn’t even have this clutter in the back of my mind, which is usually something that massively clutters my mind on vacation, my community manager has my back with facilitating mastermind calls while I’m gone, and taking care of communication with members and the community. So everything was taken care of. Did I still worry and think about work and mildly obsessed over projects I’d need to do once vacation was done? Yes, sadly, yes, it is a process. I know I’ll get there, and this vacation was a huge step forward compared to others, but I still want to take the time to evaluate and learn from it, and in the process, I hope you will take something away from this as well. This episode is meant to help you protect the preciousness of your vacations and other downtime. It doesn’t just have to be vacation. It’s any time you take away from work, because you deserve vacations without work. You deserve downtime without work. You need vacations and downtime without thinking about work period. If you disagree, you’re wrong. Okay, I don’t say that much, but truly, you do need that, or you will not have a sustainable business or a healthy, balanced life without work, free downtime and vacations.
Megan Porta 05:34
Let’s talk through five things not to bring on vacation as an entrepreneur. Number one, unfinished to do lists. The problem with unfinished to do lists is that if you bring them on vacation, you’ll be constantly thinking about what is left undone, which keeps you in work mode. In the past, I’ve always tried really hard to not leave for vacation until my to do list felt at least mostly complete, but it’s always been a stretch for me, and quite honestly, I tend to go on vacation with a few stragglers left on the list. I would go into vacation with the mindset that it wouldn’t be a huge deal to find time to do these last little things, blah, blah, blah, but this never went as planned. Instead, here’s what always happens, those few little things left on the to do list linger to my mind, causing a ridiculous amount of mental clutter until I was able to find time to get them done. The solution to this problem, prioritize and complete all tasks before leaving for vacation and create a done for now list before you leave, before our recent vacation, I knew it was coming weeks, actually, even months in advance, so I had made a plan to tackle absolutely everything necessary well before we departed. This even prompted me to get ahead with some things that I had never thought to schedule ahead before. It was kind of miraculous. Weeks before our trip, I wrote out absolutely every single thing that would need to be done before or during the time we would be on vacation. I made sure every one of those tasks on the list was either done scheduled or delegated to somebody else. Then, of course, there are the projects and tasks that I knew would be awaiting my return, things that didn’t need to be done while on vacation, but that would be greeting me at the doorstep upon my arrival back home. For me, these are the things that tend to linger and produce that undesired mental clutter. So I opened my magical to do list, Google sheet that’s been going strong since September, and I put all future post vacation tasks on specific dates. This was me sending a message to those tasks and to my mind that they will be taken care of then at a later date, on that specific date, not now or anytime sooner. End of story. Those tasks and my mind couldn’t argue. So in addition to tackling to do list items beforehand, also either assign dates to future tasks or just lump them all together in a done for now list. All of these things are done for now. You can address them at a later date. You are now out of the office. See you later. Goodbye, get out of my mind. Here’s a tip on this point, set an auto email responder communicating clear boundaries and designate someone to handle urgent tasks while you’re away. I know not everyone has the budget for a full time assistant, but having a very part time assistant even to take care of things in your absence is a super smart investment, in my opinion.
Megan Porta 08:46
Number two, guilt, the obvious problem with taking business guilt with you on vacation is feeling guilty for taking time off makes your vacation less restorative, when restoration and enjoyment should be the whole purpose of your time away. I will share a few of the guilt themed thoughts I tend to take along on vacations. I’m putting my team out by asking them to cover for me for this recent vacation, my assistant was also on vacation. It was around Thanksgiving, so I knew she was having to dig into work just a bit on her vacation, making her vacation harder. So that stuck with me. Another guilt themed thought, is that my mastermind members will feel like I’m abandoning them. Also, vacation will cause me to lose momentum. My competition probably isn’t on vacation right now. And what if people think I’m a slacker when everything is communicated properly, all of these points are complete non issues. I know my team is happy to cover things my absence, because I’m happy to do the same when they’re gone. My assistant knew that we were both on vacation, and because of my intentional planning beforehand, there was not much at all to do, really, mere minutes a day. And. My mastermind members were in good hands with the support of each other and my community manager, and instead of causing me to lose momentum, vacation will actually give me momentum. And maybe my competition isn’t currently on vacation, but they definitely take needed vacations throughout the year. I’m positive of that Anyone who thinks on the slacker for taking family vacations probably isn’t someone I want in my circle, and certainly is not someone whose opinion I care much about. So there I just demolish all of those guilt themed thoughts really quickly, all reasons for feeling guilty dispelled. The solution to this problem is, first, you absolutely must be able to reframe downtime as an investment in your creativity and your productivity. Do what you need to do to remind yourself of this before and during your trip, also just to spell the garbage like I just did. Doing that helps immensely to remove guilt from my brain. There is no room for guilt on vacation. It can immensely affect how present you feel and you want to be as present as possible while you’re on vacation, that time is limited and so precious. Here’s a tip for this point, journal or write affirmations that validate your need for rest, reinforce that truth that your business is going to be fine without you for a stretch of time. Do this leading up to your trip, and even during your trip, if guilt starts to surface and affect your time away.
Megan Porta 11:26
Number three, digital leashes. The problem with lugging along digital leashes on vacation is that staying plugged into email, Slack, project management tools, your phone, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and on and on, keeps your brain tethered to your work. I’ve been very open about this topic on the podcast in the past, but this used to be a huge problem for me, bordering on addiction, which actually isn’t funny. I think it’s a big concern for all of us as we feel so tied to and passionate about our businesses, like, if we’re not digitally connected, things are going to absolutely fall apart. I so get this worry. I understand that desire to stay connected digitally, while disconnected from our physical home, office or house or kitchen or wherever you mainly work, it makes us feel like we’re still in it, like we still matter, like people still know we care, like we haven’t fallen off the face of the planet, like we’re still important. It’s taken me a lot of years to get to a place where I don’t need to stay connected digitally no matter where I’m at. It has been a journey for me requiring a ton of intentionality and boundary setting and willpower the solution to this problem. It all comes down to boundaries set very specific tech boundaries prior to leaving for vacation. It’s like when my boys were little and we were about to get on an airplane, and I would speak very seriously and clearly to them about the plane rules and all of the boundaries set by airline staff and me and my husband. Things I would say to them were, you are going to need to stay buckled into your seat for two hours. You cannot leave your seat unless there’s an emergency. You will be able to watch a couple shows on my phone, but you have to share it. You’ll get a snack and water, but no other food. You’re going to have to be patient if you’re hungry, no rowdiness at all, because we have to respect people around us. Those boundaries were set and communicated clearly and seriously and minus just a few exceptions over the years, this worked as entrepreneurs. We have to do the same thing to ourselves. So listen up self. You will check email once a day right after waking up. The only time spent on your phone will be for taking pictures videos and looking up yummy dinner spots. You can check into Slack once a day for 10 minutes before bed. There will be no Instagram, no Facebook, no Tiktok and no WordPress, because everything is scheduled and nothing on those platforms need your attention in the next week. Be like a firm parent when doing this to yourself on our recent vacation, I allowed a daily Slack and email check in and Instagram only if I was posting something fun to stories I did have a slip up, and I’ll tell you about that in a moment. And here’s a tip for this point, remove apps from your phone that are off limits, or just turn off notifications completely.
Megan Porta 14:27
Number four, unclear expectations. The problem with not setting clear expectations prior to your vacation is that you could carry worrying about team members, clients, users, listeners, etc, with you assuming that they don’t know what they’re going to do while you’re gone, or maybe they don’t even know you’re gone at all. I think we’ve all probably been on the other end of this, when we’ve tried to get a hold of someone who we assumed was available and in the office, only to find out that they’re on a two week vacation overseas and not checking email. The more complicated our growing businesses become as entrepreneurs, the more necessary it is that we deliver clear expectations about planned time away not doing this is really frustrating for everyone. It’s frustrating for the other people on the other side of it, and it creates a good deal of unnecessary mental clutter for us, and it’s so easy to avoid this issue. The solution to this problem is to provide super clear instructions, deadlines and resources before leaving. Also communicate to team members what your boundaries are for yourself, so they can respect those as well. Always err on the side of over communication. Here are a few tips for team members. Have a pre vacation zoom call to ensure everyone is on the same page. You can communicate things like I’m going to be out of the loop from this date to this date. I’ll be checking email during these times each day. If any emergencies come up, please contact this person or leave me a voicemail or a text, and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours. For your audience or clients, you could mention on Instagram stories and in your weekly email that you’re leaving for vacation. I always have so much respect for people who, one, take the time for vacation and two, communicate openly about it, set up an auto responder and email, if that makes you feel more comfortable, have an assistant check in on your email, your comments and social media while you’re away, and for one on one or group clients, let everyone know the dates you’ll be gone, and set boundaries as needed.
Megan Porta 16:35
Number five, the I’ll just work a little temptation. The problem with succumbing to the oh, I’ll just work a little bit temptation is that thinking you can just work for a few minutes often leads to hours of lost time. This has happened to me far too many times more than I’d like to admit. In fact, while we were on our recent vacation, as I’ve mentioned, I had no intention of working and no reason for opening my laptop out of my designated times. There was one afternoon when my family and I were lounging at our friend’s house. My husband, Dan, was reading by the pool. Our oldest son Elijah, was watching something on YouTube, and our youngest son Sammy was catching up on his homework, and my laptop was just sitting there, staring at me, calling to me, open me. I thought maybe I’ll work for just 15 minutes on an upcoming blog post. Looking back, I’m wondering why. Why did I think this? Why did I think this was a good idea? 45 minutes later, boundaries ditched, and guilt starting to surface, Elijah walked into the room and said, Mom, why are you working right now? This jolted me out of the rabbit hole I was in and I didn’t want to be in. I didn’t need to be in. I immediately closed my computer and I did not do that again for the rest of the trip. It’s not worth it if you do your pre planning and set your boundaries and truly intend to spend intentional time with yourself and with your family or friends or whoever you’re on vacation with, it’s not worth risking that time turning into 90 minutes or more of unnecessary work time. Don’t do it. Resist the temptation. Pull out your willpower. The solution to this problem, commit to being fully present and trust the systems you have put in place. It really does come down to trusting yourself and knowing what you want from this time off. Have I done everything possible to truly take time off from work? Do I trust myself? Do I trust my team? Do I trust the systems I put in place? Do I want to be present with my loved ones? Here’s a tip. Use scheduling tools, auto responders, and lean on your team members or VAs or assistants so you don’t even have the urge to jump in if you do have the urge, immediately ask yourself the questions that I just rattled off.
Megan Porta 18:59
That is all I have for this episode. Vacations are essential for you, for entrepreneurs in order to recharge, but I get it, they can be a challenge. In this episode, we talked about five things not to bring with you on vacation, unfinished, to do lists, business guilt, digital leashes, unclear expectations and the temptation to just work a little. By planning ahead, setting boundaries and reframing rest as an investment in you and your business, you can embrace your time away and return to work feeling energized and focused rather than guilty and frazzled. Your downtime is sacred. Treat it as such. Protecting vacations is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and for your business. Commit to stepping away completely and trust the systems and people you’ve put in place. Your business will thank you, but most importantly, future you will thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this helps if you have an upcoming vacation, go enjoy. It. You deserve it. I will see you back here next week food bloggers.
Outro
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