2-month sabbatical. Ready? Set goals. Go!

Today was my last day of work before starting a 2-month (mini) sabbatical. It will be a little bit over sixty days, and while I am aware this is more than your average vacation, it will be 10 weeks that will go away faster than I hope. Because of this, what I want to do is play with the balance of letting a handful of days unfold freely with some level of spontaneity, but also making sure I intentionally dedicate time to do, learn, and explore things that matter to me. My expectation is to make this feel fulfilling even once it ends, and this can only come from achieving things I want to achieve. Be it feeling extremely rested and energized, or intellectually engaged in learning a new subject. So this is how I am planning to do it.

Rituals to make it special

To set the tone I first focused on clearing up all my responsibilities at work, and setting the atmosphere to make it obvious I was not going to be available during that time. The early notification was the first step, though I also did two things that may have seemed unnecessary, but that in my view added the extra spice to make it feel special.

One was baking cookies. At Pipedrive, we have the tradition of bringing a treat to share with the new coworkers within our first week of work. Those cookies are what I chose back in 2015, so I thought choosing the same treat before a long break would set the mood to signify that both starting, ending, or taking long breaks are equally exciting and worth a sweet celebration together.

The second thing was to plan on packing stuff carefully. Luckily, I am not being fired. But I do change seats often, depending on who I am working with, and I also know we onboard 10s of people every month, and so the space is needed. So it felt like a good thing for others to clean up my desk a la Hollywood movie by putting everything in a box and taking it home with me on the last day. This way I gave myself a chance to get rid of a few things, and reorganize or repurpose others. I also brought home with me things that I would just normally use at the office, like my daylight therapy lamp, which is very much needed in winter, and my personalized Pipedrive bottle of water.

Setting goals

At home we have the habit of setting goals for the year. They are pretty much OKRs that we keep in a google sheet and divide by quarters and months, and that are organized by areas of importance in our lives. We also keep a sheet where we track our satisfaction with these areas on a weekly basis (we pretty much do weekly retrospectives :)). The areas include things like physical health, family relationships, work, home, mental health, and so on.

It is thanks to this weekly reflection that I noticed a down trend in my physical and emotional health, that I decided to take this break. That, combined with my personal goal of having mini retirements throughout my productive life, was the right sign to settle on the plan of taking this time off.

During the weeks leading to the beginning of the break I had been writing down things I thought I would like to do during this time. I did not want to stick fully to the original 2019 plan because plans are meant to guide us, not to enslave us. And if they are not working, and obviously something in mine was not working, they must be updated.

As the quote goes:

“Plans Are Worthless, But Planning Is Everything”.

Anonymous?

In reality, many of the things that I had planned for 2019, kept on coming back on that “new” list. This is a good things because it shows that I know what I really want. The problem has been that I have repeatedly given priority to one area mainly (work) over others that should have been the priority at a given time. So during these weeks I kept on mentally and on paper going through the list and making it thinner and thinner, until I settle on 3 main things:

• Improving my mental and physical health
• Improving my emotional health
• Levelling up my skills

I took a few actions to prepare:

1. I studied intensely for a couple of months for an exam which I successfully passed. This would take me closer to one of the goals in one area of my life that is secondary at this point, and freed me up for one of the three areas above during those 10 weeks.
2. Got tickets to Seoul and read a bit about the city and things to do there. This is an exciting bucket list type of thing, so it feeds into my emotional health. I picked dates close to the start of my break so I can quickly start restoring which is important for mental health.
3. Got tickets to Lisbon for a family reunion in the city. Spending time with those I love is an element that feeds emotional health.
4. Did an analysis of my professional skills and knowledge, and based on it I identified a few books, podcasts, and websites to learn during this time. This is about levelling up my skills and will help me regain focus after the exciting and playful weeks in Korea. This will also guide me in the weeks close to my return to work.

Making it into a plan

These goals give me an option to play with that balance of freedom and spontaneity, and also give me something to look forward to, and challenge myself. My intention is to dedicate themes to each week. This is a bit stricter than others might imagine for a sabbatical, but I expect it will feel more flexible than the routinized 9-5 life I generally lead.

To complement it, I have visualized myself spending time at places I generally enjoy but that I have less time for during the working time: visit museums, cafeterias, libraries and bookstores. In these I can enjoy a few hobbies, and also take the time to read and write, one of the ways in which I expect to work on my mental health, and regain touch with my creative self. Which is, by the way, what this girl is doing, too (why this girl quit her PM job at Twitter).

Execute

It is time to get things started, so this first week I will be preparing for my trip to Seoul, and enjoy a few days of slow starts at home. 

I have already gotten my hands into a Memrise course of Hangul and basic Korean phrases, so I can at least read the signs when I am walking the streets of Seoul. We have also booked a visit to the infamous border area between North and South Korea, and I have started a list of things to do there.

I hope to get the juices flowing and write once a week to keep you posted on my 10 weeks.

Happy Friday,
Maria 🌺