This newsletter comes out every other Thursday and hopefully provides you with thought-provoking content about the mundane, wacky, and weird. I will be writing until the 75th edition. If you know someone who may enjoy the newsletter, you can share it here.
Jenny and I are one week into a two-month road trip which includes getting married and honeymooning in Greece. I am working on the road, but taking time off for the honeymoon. My Figma team has been super supportive of me taking time off, but I still feel a bit nervous.
I am not alone in my anxiety about going on holiday. Many people say they hesitate to take more vacation because they don’t want to look like a bad worker, feel guilty for taking time off, or face more work when they come back.
Taking time off is good for you and the economy. In 2018, 768 million U.S. vacation days went unused, costing the American economy 150+ billion dollars. If Americans used all of their allotted vacation time, the added spending on travel alone would create over 2 million jobs in the service industry. Plus, the added productivity per worker boosts the economy.
People often have their most creative breakthroughs on vacation. There are countless examples, but one of my favorites comes from Lin Manuel Miranda. He had the idea for Hamilton when he read Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton during a vacation to Mexico. He had been working for seven years on his play In the Heights, and as he later put it, “the moment my brain got a moment’s rest, Hamilton walked into it.”
It is not just famous people who are harping on the benefits of vacation, here are three people in my social network who this week expressed the need for a break. Click to enlarge.
How to “spend” a vacation
My Mom has been a travel agent for 30 years and said one lesson she has learned is that “everyone’s version of fun is different”. For simplicities sake, there are two types of travel, a vacation or an adventure. There is obviously a spectrum between the two and here is one way to visualize it.
The different types of trips recharge you in different ways. A pure vacation will often be what you need after a hard charge at work. However, in the span of a lifetime, many people will want at least a few adventures to feel like they made the most of their time off.
Conclusion
One of the most thought-provoking books I read recently is called “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman. It is billed as a time management book for mortals as we only have about four thousand weeks to live.
Burkeman posits that we sub-consciously view rest, vacation, and leisure as necessary for productivity at work. I have fallen into this trap during this write-up, often highlighting the benefits of taking a vacation to help you be more productive at work.
Yes, vacation and short breaks will often make you more productive at work. But whatever happened to taking a vacation for leisure's sake? Not as something that we do to escape work or to become more productive, but enjoy the vacation because leisure is a luxury we should strive for and not feel guilty about.
I don’t know why but the mindset of a vacation purely for leisure’s sake rocked me. After a travel trip abroad, I will even add it to my tally of “countries visited”. Forty-one, forty-two and counting…but right, that doesn’t really matter. It’s playing the wrong game.
As I approach my two-week honeymoon trip. I will set myself up for success before I leave, but other than that, I will try to stay in the present with my new wife and enjoy the vacation for leisure’s sake. Leisure has gotten a bad rap. We often view leisure as whatever we are doing that isn’t work or a chore, but that is a pretty low bar for leisure. Leisure isn’t sitting down, slumped over scrolling on Instagram. At its best, leisure brings us closer to connecting with others, the rhythms of nature, and ultimately wisdom.
What I am listening to
Sporkful - The famous food-focused podcast follows the host’s multi-year journey to create a new pasta shape.
Fair warning: My friend Sam stopped listening after 5-minutes because the Sporkful host went on about how all of the pasta shapes were flawed. Sam was nervous he would never enjoy his angel hair pasta again 😈.
App I am loving
Gas buddy - Gas prices have doubled in the last two years and people are feeling the pinch.
Jenny and I are on a two-month cross-country road trip and saving any bit we can at the pump will compound. Gas buddy shows real-time gas prices at more than 140,000 gas stations. The app lets you easily find and navigate to the cheapest gas on the road.
Geography fact of the day
I passed through Reno, Nevada last week and was surprised to learn that it is west of Los Angeles.
Pic of the Week
We’ve had a blast staying at our friend Adam Ali’s awesome Airbnb in Salt Lake City. The flowers are bursting at the seams this time of year. We are here for 6 nights and it was nice to settle into a routine and get a feel for the neighborhood.