Stress Relief-
While on Vacation

Here is a quick Q & A as I pack and get ready to leave
for the mountains tomorrow:

1. Do you take a vacation every year? One or several?

Yes in fact I take up to 10 weeks a year.

2. How long do you generally vacation? Is there a threshold after which you aren't comfortable being absent?

That is the key. I have found that I am best able to manage my business and vacation needs by taking shorter trips more often. For instance I work 4 days a week, Tues. Wed, Fri, and Sat. So I am leaving tomorrow in the early morning flying to Salt Lake City, Utah; will rent a car and be up on the mountain skiing a half day by 12:30pm. I will stay until Monday, ski a half day and fly home.

I pack a whole lot of vacation into a long weekend and only miss two days of work. I have also set up my business in a way to accommodate my life style. I have one person who works out of my space two days a week and when I leave town she is often available to pick up extra shifts so I am still able to make a little money even when I am gone.

My whole philosophy is that you must live a balanced life. Make sure you take time for yourself so that you can be more prepared to take care of those in your life and better able to deal with the stress of life such as family and work demands. This is something I am always working on with my clients, so of course I feel it is important to practice in my own life.

So most of my vacations range from 4-7 days. And every few years I try to go on a long trip out of the country for two to three weeks. This obviously takes a little more planning.

3. How do you budget for a vacation, taking into account you aren't generating income while you're gone?

Planning is the most important thing. Obviously setting aside money but something that has become apparent to me over time is that there are certain periods of the year that are slower than others, so I try to schedule time off during the periods that are already slow. Take the summers for instance. I end up taking about a week off each month in June, July and August.

What ends up happening is that my schedule is more full when I am in town. Say I average between 12 and 16 treatments a week but in the summer things slow down to ten or less. I am able to clump the same number of treatments into a more specified period of time. If the clients aren't coming in because they are on vacation, well I ought to be on vacation too.

4. How far out do you plan your vacation? When do you let your clients know? Do you only inform regulars?

I once worked in the social service field and as a child care worker and mental health professional. We were given 5 weeks paid vacation a year. This averaged out to one week of vacation every 3 months. I came to realize that this is a very healthy way to live. I also spent my junior year in college studying abroad in Europe. The Europeans have a completely different way of defining themselves- you are not defined by what you do for a living but what you do for recreation. In many other countries they take the entire month of August off. It is kind of hard to argue with that and once you give it a try it is hard to go back. My wife is a high school teacher; we don't make nearly as much as most of our friends but we have a lot more time and do a lot more traveling.

I plan my vacations a good three to six months to a year in advance. I know every winter in December we are going to go visit my aunts in Florida, and every spring I am going to go skiing and every summer my wife and I are going to arrange a vacation just the two of us with out our 4 1/2 year old.

I let my clients know when they are booking follow up appointments so that we can work around both of our schedules. I am more likely to discuss upcoming vacations with regular clients.

5. Do you check e-mail or voicemail when you're away? Do you refer clients to
someone else?

Generally not. Maybe I should, but I am on vacation. Something I am going to start doing, especially when I am gone for more than a few days, is say on my answering machine that I am out of town and give the date I will be returning. I pride myself on returning calls promptly and always feel a little bad when I get home and have to call people back a week after they phoned in for an appointment; especially new clients.

6. Have you ever lost a client because you weren't available when they were?

You know, you can't worry about that. You have to be willing to schedule your own happiness and when you take care of yourself first you will always be a better therapist and the new clients will keep on calling. It just works that way.

Rick's Keys to traveling often and for a small amount of money:

Get a mileage credit card. Pay for everything you normally pay for, pay the amount off every month and earn miles for it. Call it a business card and write off the $60 fee; most airlines give 15-20 thousand miles for signing up. I recently got an American Airlines business card. There was no annual fee for the first year and get this, they gave me 20,000 miles after my first purchase. I mean, come on, in two or three months of spending I earned a free flight. The kicker: cancel the card at the end of the year. Why pay an annual fee when you can sign up for a new card and get 15 or so thousand more miles?

Travel to places where you have friends or family so that accommodations are free. I will be staying with an old roommate of my brother's in Salt Lake City. Now he has become my friend and I have a free place to stay any time I want to go skiing. Of course I will be bringing him a nice frozen deep dish Chicago Style Lou Malanati's Pizza. And my aunts are thrilled every December to have my wife and son come to visit. And they are great babysitters so my wife and I get a break and go to the movies all the time.

Travel when your clients go on vacation. August is a great month for time off.

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Stress Relief- While on Vacation

Stress Relief-
While on Vacation