Workations – Getting work done on vacations

Transcript[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″]

0:00 Hey guys, I’m Brooks and I’m Mandee. So we’re husband and wife, entrepreneurs and we believe that life and business are a giant adventure and we want to live it with you guys.

0:11 So let’s get to it.

0:24 Hey guys, welcome back. It’s Brooks and

0:26 Mandee.

0:29 In this episode, we want to talk to you guys about something that’s near and dear to our heart. And people think we’re crazy. But that’s okay. Definitely, because we are a little crazy. Sometimes. You have to be to be in business for yourself and be creating but So today, we want to talk about this word. We didn’t invent this word, but we definitely use it all the time. And the word is WORK-ATION Yeah, so workations. So we, we take work, so we’re just thinking about before hitting the record button, we kind of like talked about, Okay, wait, how many times have we done this? Do we do it systematically periodically when we need it and and so we don’t have a system where, where we take a location and by one quick sidestep the definition, I’m sure you can figure out but a workation. It’s a mix between doing work getting work done and taking a vacation. So definition, we take a short trip, we go somewhere, we get work done. We get to focus. And we’ll go into that a little bit more in a moment, but we also get to try something new. Maybe it’s a restaurant we’ve never been to, or it’s a location we’ve never been to. And so we couple that together on a trip and we call it a worktation. Yes, but we just were looking and like so this year, we think we’ve already done maybe, possibly two or three and we have one more scheduled right. I think one more probably this year will will will be it. So that looks like ah somewhere in the ballpark of three to four a year. These little trips that we do.

2:02 And so not to get confused, we’re not workaholics. And we’re not like we’re not living life where we’re working, working, working all day, every day. And then we’re doing this on top of that. I just wanted to make that clear. Very good point.

2:12 Yeah, very good point. So

2:15 well, let’s, let’s tell people why we do it. Like, why do we do work? So we’re self employed. So people, just so that people know, we are in business for ourselves. So which means that at the end of the day, everything falls on us. And if there’s projects and things that we want to do, or we need to move forward, and we haven’t, no one, there’s no one else to kind of point the finger at or no one to look at. or, you know, maybe you’re in between, like hiring a person that you’re like, maybe I could have an employee that would help me with this project, or maybe not. It really just it stays on the list and they become like important things that we need to do. We just don’t have time for them in everyday kind of sense of like everyday work. So to us, those are perfect. Project right for a workation like so for. For me maybe it’s like it’s creating maybe it’s redoing a piece of media for us, or creating a blog post or something like that these are things that I don’t have time for. Or I don’t make time for I don’t put it on my daily work regiment just because of other things that we have going in the in the work and life room. Right. But a workation, it’s a perfect time for that. For me, for you. It’s a know for sure, creating in our, like our local magazine content

3:35 creation. Yeah, for sure. Well, in our everyday life, you know, being an entrepreneur, being self employed, there is a lot of flexibility. We’re not gonna lie, it’s one of the pros of being self employed. But with that flexibility, we kind of get pulled in a ton of different directions on an everyday basis. No, no, one day is the same as the next. So for us, this takes time, like hey, we’re going to do this The workation and so we can kind of schedule out our time that way so it gets done, but it gets done when we’re like super focused and can get it done for sure during that timeframe.

4:10 Absolutely. That’s a good point and I feel like we’ve you know what it’s not like we’re experts at this it’s not like we’ve been doing it for five years or anything. I feel like we just started it a few years ago we said hey, let’s like we just have so much on our plate so many things undone at the moment like what if we What if we go somewhere and we’re not talking about we don’t go super far right? We stay within like a couple of hours for sure. Right our home town sometimes we go have we stayed in town yet in? We have not we have not so we need to have that on our list. We did go right across the bay which is only like 30 minutes for so to Fairhope, Alabama 45 minutes, whatever. And so so we were in Mobile, Alabama so we don’t go far. We’re heading over to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, I believe is where we’re going to go coming up for for a few nights and And we’re still figuring it out. Like how we do them what’s the best way like man he wants to do I think a three night trip. I feel like it’s a little bit too much even for me. And I love getting up early with a cup of coffee and kind of getting started on a project. But I feel like you know, two nights is probably enough one for like, budget and two like, how how focused I guess I can be in that time period. Um, but yeah, so it’s something that we’re constantly I feel like we’re trying to figure out and see how they work and how they operate. And if they stop being beneficial to us, we’ll probably stop doing them. Right. But for now, I feel like our first I don’t know we’ve done three, four or five, maybe give or take.

5:43 I don’t feel

5:44 I feel like they’ve all gone really well

5:47 get a lot done.

5:48 We get a lot done. And we you and I we have a fun experience is kind of like getting out of our own element, right getting away from the house where there’s, you know, the normal everyday distractions. have food and house chores and laundry and whatnot. So we also get our own time away just you and as a couple, but then we get to work on our projects and it’s really cool because we go we’re not spending extravagant money I mean, we were usually booking a place it’s about 100 hundred bucks a night it’s kind of a business Now I’m not saying it’s like oh, it’s cheap, like by no means but you know we’re not saying a $300 a night five star hotel we’re staying at like my favorite is like what would our favorite like I like the holiday inn express and is there another one that I love? The Hampton Inn Hampton and these are these are like we love these mainly because they have free breakfast and I’m dig the breakfast I wake up we don’t have to cook. They’re usually newer, like newer properties. We love a newer property. They have excellent workout facilities. Yeah, they have workout facilities. And that’s like something that that we do so like we’ll we’ll wake up will, you know, eat breakfast will work out we’ll you know, we’ll plan our day and we say hey, we’ll work from this hour to this hour, whatever and then and we look forward to taking a break in the evening time. I’m for like, right for a dinner or something. Or just whatever is going out and having a break, you know, grabbing a drink, grabbing dinner, whatever, you know, somewhere we’ve never been and getting to spend a little bit of time experiencing and then we’ll, you know, whatever, go to bed wake up early, do it again. And then typically when we check out, you know, the checkout time, we can even hang it. We’ve actually done this once where we’ve cool. Okay, so we checked out and we hung out in the lobby for like, a couple more hours. Right. And we’re just kind of is a nice lobby. Yeah, I mean, we’re just kind of hanging out in the hotel lobby and getting a little bit more work done before we you know, had or needed to leave and I thought that worked really well. Yeah, you know, that time. So, I mean, really cool. I mean, it really works well for us if you’ve never tried it, or you know, if you’re self employed, especially if you especially if you work with your spouse, you know, for sure, it’s like it’s simple. If you work with your spouse, it’s like you already want to go and like hang out and visit and try somewhere you get to spend time with each other.

7:57 But if you’re single or you you know, if you don’t have a spouse And you have a business on your own. I think just getting away from the house is the most important thing, especially of your children, you have pets, you have all the things. Whenever you walk through your home door, you have the responsibility of your home and if you work from home, then it just makes it much harder to be able to actually sit down focus and get something done and especially if you have to do carpool drop off pickup sports after school you know, your life kind of gets pulled in so many different directions.

8:28 The Adventure of life here as I like to call it, which you guys will hear us talk about or at least me for sure often on this on these recordings because I we think that business and life it’s a giant adventure, and I feel like maybe a number of years ago, I wouldn’t say I was trying to fight that. I was just, I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t accept it right for all for what it was, but it is and then it adventure includes the things that you want. Sometimes the things that she don’t want But it’s it at the end of it all. It is a giant adventure. And so you know, just embrace it. Enjoy it. Just take the ride. Yeah,

9:08 I think we apply that to our workations as well as while we try to get out and go somewhere different, stay somewhere different, do something different. With that time that we we give ourselves

9:18 totally agree with you totally agree with you any final thoughts for these people on workations? I would

9:24 just say try it and do it. Some people kind of go stir crazy if you’re saying hey, like go lock yourself up in a hotel room for a couple of days to get stuff done. But if that’s not your style, maybe Brooks is a huge fan of coffee shops and those kinds of things. I would suggest just one full 24 hours away. If you have projects if you have things that you need to get work done to work on. I would say just try it.

9:48 Give it a go. So all right guys, give it a shot and let us know how it goes. And we’ll see you guys next time.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]