Time For Vacation Planning! Here’s how to get started:

Its always a good time to plan your vacation! Remember, you need to strategically rejuvenate on a regular basis perform at your best. This is because we are running a marathon, not a sprint! Continuously working will not only cause burn out, become irritable and short tempered, but your effectiveness and motivation will also start to wane. Everyone must relax, recover and rejuvenate regularly. When planning your time off, please consider these rules: 

1. Please plan vacation time when there is sufficient coverage in your department (Admin/clinical/DDS). ie. all doctors shouldn’t go on vacation at the same time. Bonus points if you can find someone to cover for you, so the team is not stretched too thin. Especially true if you’re planning for a long vacation.
2. Everyone gets a fair chance -eg.  if you took the Friday for a long weekend this year, let someone else in your department have a go next year. Part timers, if you can cover the days before or after a long weekend, we will be so grateful, we would kiss your feet!
3. Plan far in advance but not too far. Scheduling a vacation in advance is amazing for several reasons. Time off in the future gives you something to look forwards too and fully savour the anticipation. Some days are hard, but those days get more tolerable when there’s a special time off planned in the future.
4. Your job on vacation is to come back a new person. Get refreshed, energized and motivated to change your patients lives for the better with more enthusiasm then ever before! How do you do that? Every year, Microsoft Founder, Bill Gates plans an annual ‘reading week’ where he eliminates all external distractions and just reads. He uses this quiet time to develop the next billion dollar idea and then returns to work, ready to take over the world.
5. The Post cruise blues Prescription.  The hardest part after any vacationing is the return to the grind of routine. You can combat this dreaded speed bump by immediately planning the next vacation (see item #3). Then sashay instead into the sweet spot of savouring the most recent vacation and anticipating the next destination. How doubly awesome is that?