twenty-minute vacation
July 8, 2018
I’m trying something new today: a video post.
All I’ll add is that, after watching, if you are still having trouble figuring out how this could work for you and your life, get in touch via the comments and we’ll brainstorm together. It can be done!
And now, the video. Enjoy “The 20-Minute Vacation” …
You have to do this more often. It was kind of nice to seeyour face and hear your voice. It makes it feel very personal. Great job!
Having a granddaughter that is 19 months old, and not being 20, or 30 years old anymore is really crazy.
My getaway strategy is similar to yours.
But I don’t settle for just 20 minutes lol.
I love the smell of suntan lotions and sunscreen. Makes me feel like Im at the beach. I love the sound of water. I love the seagulls. The feeling of sun on my face.
I strive to go to the waterfront every week to get most of that.
But my best mini vacation is getting on the open road with windows open. Wind blowing my hair, sun beating on me and nothing but the sound of wind.
I dont put music on, dont talk, just listen to wind, feel wind and sun, smell the breeze… my moment of recovery.
Im still trying to figure out how I can pipe in beach sounds into my back yard that would be perfect. Ahhh
I think your next theme should be how to convince your husband to put in a water feature w beach sounds. That would be very beneficial.
Great job as always Eric!
So good that you know how to enjoy silence, Donna. I also love to just drive and feel the wind.
I don’t know how convincing I’ll be about the Beach Yard Project, however! But I do bring the beach to my space in as many ways as possible.
Erik,
Great video and very nicely done! That lake is gorgeous and I like the 20 minute vacation idea—I definitely need to do more of those 🙂
Thanks, Jed. It was really tough to not get tweaky with it; but I purposely didn’t fret over the flaws in order to get it up. (Insider info: that was the ninth take, for the most ridiculous reasons; I wouldn’t have been surprised if a stray rhino ran through at one point there.) Thanks for challenging me to get this up!
What a nice change of pace this was, Erik! You present so well; you ought to do more occasional vlogs! (And gorgeous backdrop, by the way!)
Watching this, I was reminded of something Jack Palance tells Billy Crystal in City Slickers: That he has no balance in his life. He spends fifty weeks of the year getting himself tied up in knots, and then expects two weeks of vacation to undo all that. (That was kind of Chevy Chase’s problem in Vacation, too.) We need to take better daily care of ourselves, rather than swinging from one extreme to the other.
Couldn’t agree more about the need to unplug. I leave my phone home when I go on my own “twenty-minute vacations,” just like the good old days. As the Who’s Roger Daltrey once said: “It’s when you’re doing nothing… that we get our great thoughts, and our great artistic ideas. You know, you get epiphanies. You’re never gonna get it when you’re being fed stuff all the time.”
Love the additional thoughts, references and quote, Sean. I hope people read these comments; they always enhance the post.
I think the biggest “success story” so far with this particular post is that my mother—who is 74, retired, and yet taking daily care of my 94-year-old grandmother—watched it and decided to incorporate some of those “20-minute vacations” into her own days.
Great post, Erik, and fun watching you on video for a change. I was thinking about your suggestions and realized that I take 20 minute vacations quite a lot. (We don’t have cell service here, so that part is easy.) What I don’t do, is identify my breaks as “vacations,” and I think acknowledging the mindset is important. Just saying, “Ah, I’m on vacation,” as I walk the dogs changes the experience. I’m going on vacation today – for at least half an hour!
Words and mindsets absolutely matter, Diana. I did imagine that you are good at taking vacations (though, ironically, it also causes me to wonder how you make time for those and stay so prolific and engaged with your audience!).
Happy today-vacation!
Twenty minute vacations don’t take a lot of time, if you think about it. I can walk the dogs, vacation, and get some exercise all at the same time! I’m efficient! Ha ha.
All equally important!
What a delightful video! I’d love to know where you took it. Just this past weekend my guy and I hiked around Great Meadow (Concord), which looks similar to your setting. The lily pads are numerous and green, but the lotus flowers are not blossoming yet. I think you’re 20-minute idea is brilliant. We call all do 20 minutes – come ON. Yet hardly any of us do. Good idea about turning the phone off to airplane mode. Should turn it off completely, but that freaks too many people out. So sad. Last month I wrote a post about being forced into “doing nothing” https://roughwighting.net/2018/06/08/how-do-you-do-nothing/ and how difficult it was, since I had to turn everything off for a week, at least. So now, 20 minutes seems like a “no-brainer” (no pun intended). During my “everything” hiatus, I did find that listening to a meditation CD for a half hour everyday a good way to turn it all off, also.
[…] and a few more things: Be sure to check out my friend Erik Tyler’s post on taking a twenty-minute vacation. Second, for more stress-busting and mood-boosting strategies, dive into our Ultimate Guide for […]