Peter Macfarlane & Associates

The summer season is upon us. I’m going to be away on holiday from August 11^th through September 17^th. During that time you won’t be able to contact me. If you are a client, or existing client, who will need something done before mid September, contact me urgently please!

Surprised? Jealous? You may be. But let me explain below in a few words why I’m taking a month-long vacation… and why you should seriously consider doing the same, if you want to become wealthier and more free.

If you’re anything like me, you are addicted to the internet. I get hundreds of emails per day and process most of them myself. The volume increases all the time. This year, I have added RSS feeds from many news sources and blogs that I need to follow for my writing, which has added hundreds if not thousands more headlines to read every day.

Most of us now have mobile devices, that are not just phones but also give us email, news, and so on wherever we happen to be.

But here’s the secret.  Once you realize that you can turn off the noise for a few weeks without the world coming to an end, you will find yourself liberated in a way that few people will ever know.

As a writer and businessman, having some time to get on with new projects undisturbed is of great value. But all of us need free time to contemplate without distractions. To spend time with family. To make plans for the future. To take a step back and see how far we have come, and set goals about where we really want to go. Because if we don’t know where we are going, we are surely not going to get there!

The danger of being in constant communication with the world is that you will fall into that classic trap of being “too busy earning a living to make any real money.”

Many people go on vacation, but don’t turn off the Blackberry. And as tempting as it is to “just check e-mail for one minute,” it really doesn’t work like that, and you know it! Any problem you find in your inbox will linger on your brain for hours or days after you shut down the computer, rendering “free time” useless with preoccupation. It’s the worst of states – you experience neither relaxation nor productivity. Another important lesson I’ve learned is that time without attention is worthless, so you should value attention over time.

Will little problems happen? Yes. But put them in perespective. They can be solved. It’s also a great opportunity for team confidence-building: force your people to solve problems on their own, and you might be pleasantly surprised at how things work out. It will build their confidence and your confidence in them at the same time.

The important “big picture” thing is to move on with your life, know where you are going, and make things happen to achieve your goals. These things will more likely happen while you are sitting on the beach or by the pool relaxing, than they will while you are sitting in an office answering emails about trifling matters. And if you do make the time for the big picture goals but you puncture this time with distractions, you won’t have the attention to make effective use of it.

The challenge is to allow urgent things to “fail” - even for a few days - to get to the next level with your potential life-changing and wealth creating tasks.

That’s the challenge I’ll be taking when I leave for my vacations next week.