Newsletter
| July-August 2007 Pomote your own sustainability–take a vacation! A couple of weeks ago I screened a movie I like to watch every summer. It's one of my favorites: 1953's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday directed by and starring Jacques Tati. The movie has no real plot–it's more of a series of vignettes within the main story of a group of people spending a week at a French sea-side town for their summer vacation.  Monsieur Hulot (a cross between Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Mr. Bean), played by Tati creates chaos wherever he goes by just being who he is. But besides Hulot, the one character who stands out to me every time I see the film is the one guy who despite being on vacation, isn't really on vacation. He's that cliche we all know: the American business man. In just about every scene he is called away to the hotel desk for a business phone call (it's the 50's, no cell phones). The calls interrupt the family snapshot portrait, he's interrupted while swimming in the ocean and his disappointed family is prevented from attending a picnic-outing with the other guests. We've all seen this guy We've all been this guy at some point. We go on vacation but we can't seem to leave work at home. I'm guilty of it, in the past I've taken my laptop with me so I could keep up with my email–while on vacation! But on my last vacation I made a deal with myself; take only digital technology for communication or entertainment. So, although my cell phone came along with an ipod and a digital camera, the phone stayed off except for calling restaurants and the place we stayed.
Try these self-sustaining tips while on vacation: • turn off the cell phone and Blackberry (crackberry?) • leave the laptop at home • put an autoresponder on your email account • read, relax and enjoy your time off If you run your own business: • tell your clients ahead of time that you will be on vacation and unreachable • if you need to, have someone available to help clients on projects or emergencies • go to: http://sbinformation.about.com/od/benefits/a/vacationguide.htm for more tips Recharge Constant work prevents creativity from flowing and wears your patience.The reason we go on vacations is so we can recharge and be better at what we do the rest of the time. So relax, work will be there when you return. Oh, and go check out M. Hulot's Holiday this summer. It's a great movie with one of the best theme songs ever Back to the Newsletter page Sign up to get your copy of the Pylon Page |
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