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In this solo podcast episode, host Kevin Griffin shares personal experiences and insights about the importance of taking time off from work while detailing his current two-week vacation in Italy with their family. He discusses exploring various cities, including Venice, Florence, and Rome. He emphasizes the significance of stepping away from work to prevent burnout and improve mental health. The host also discusses feedback from the Multithreaded Income (MTI) community on vacation habits, the challenges of taking time off, especially for freelancers and independent consultants, and strategies for planning vacations. Quality time away from work is essential for personal well-being and better work performance.
00:00 Introduction and Solo Show Explanation
00:16 My Vacation to Italy
00:57 The Importance of Taking Time Off
01:44 The Dangers of Overworking
02:38 The Benefits of Taking Breaks
03:46 Community Responses on Vacation Frequency
05:56 The Challenges of Taking Time Off
09:06 Planning for Time Off
11:40 How to Spend Your Time Off
13:39 Conclusion and Call to Action
14:24 Outro and Podcast Wrap-up
Creators & Guests
What is Multithreaded Income Podcast?
In the "Multithreaded Income Podcast," host Kevin Griffin navigates the nuanced landscape of generating multiple income streams as a technologist. Aimed at professionals who wish to diversify their revenue while maintaining a focus on technology, this podcast dives deep into unconventional strategies, untapped opportunities, and actionable advice.
It's time for the multi
threaded income podcast.
We're like insurance for a
turbulent tech landscape.
I'm your host, Kevin Griffin.
Join me as I chat with people all around
the industry who are using their skills
to build multiple threads of income.
Let us support you in your career
by joining our discord at mti.
to slash discord.
Now let's get started.
Kevin Griffin: everyone.
Welcome back to the show.
And this is a solo show.
You might not notice unless you're
watching the video, but I am joined
just by myself and we haven't done
this in a while, but there's a very
specific reason that this is a solo show.
And that's because I am in the
middle of a two week vacation
with my wife and my kids.
And we've gone to Italy.
So we're exploring the Italy countryside,
starting our visit in Venice.
I'm doing some gondola
rides and stuff like that.
Then we're taking the
train down to Florence.
We're hanging out in
Florence for a couple days.
Then finally we're settling in Rome.
We're going to see the Colosseum.
We're going to see all the good
stuff that Rome has to offer before
flying back to the United States.
So while I'm saying I'm gone
for two weeks, it's going to
be a very packed two weeks.
But I thought, leading up to this
trip, it was a good idea to talk with
the multithreaded income community
about the importance of taking
time off and taking a vacation.
So, recently, I went to the MTI
community and asked them, How
often do you take time off work?
And when you do, what do
you do with that time?
And I got some really great
responses, and I think that's
what we need to talk about today.
Is how often do you take a vacation?
So first of all, why is it
important for us to take time off
of our daily lives of our work?
And one of the commenters
had a really great point.
And he said, I have made it a habit in
the past to grind through the hard times.
And.
You know that feeling most likely of
you're working on something and you're
working and you're working and you feel
like you're not really taking steps
forward, but you might be inching forward
or even in some cases taking a step back.
And you feel that if you just put in
the time and the grit that you will
get past this and then you can take
some time off and more often than not.
That's not really the case.
You can grind and you can grind and grind.
You'll just burn yourself out.
And overall, the thing that you're
working on and the teams that you're
working with are not going to benefit
from you just putting in extra hours
trying to get through different projects.
So it's in our best interest when we it.
are working on these difficult problems
that we just take time off every now
and then we step away from the problem.
We should step away from the problem
and just go do something else.
Like I'm not a scientist.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not going to sit here and quote
studies that tell you that scientists
say that it's better to do X, Y,
and Z when you're feeling burnt out.
I'm not going to do that.
I'm just going to give you
my personal experience.
I feel better when.
I leave work where work is
and I go do something else.
So that's important overall
just for mental health.
When you're working, working,
working, that's good.
Like there's legitimate reasons why
you should work and you should work
hard and you should be good at your
job, but you should also be good at
taking the time away from work to go
pursue other interests, to work on the.
Quality of life of your family and
you can always come back to the work.
So I'm glad that we're
having this conversation.
One of the questions I asked was
how often should we take vacation or
how often should we take time away?
And I got a variety of different
answers from the MTI community.
And the first one that really stood
out to me is sometimes the universe
will just make you take the time.
Uh, so there's one person in the
entire NTI community who said he
had to take time away from work.
He had to rest because he
ended up suffering from a
concussion and we see this often.
The universe just says you need a
break and it does it in the most,
uh, almost painful way possible.
Sometimes you are in an accident
and you just have to lay low
for a week or a couple of weeks.
Sometimes you might have surgery
and the surgery says you can't
work, you can't get out of bed.
You have to be on rest for a period
of time so your body can heal.
Sometimes it's more than that.
You find yourself with more
complicated health problems that
just require you to take time away.
So if you are the type of person who
works, works, works all the time, your
body might just not need you to do that.
Your body might just need you to rest.
And I would never necessarily have
thought about that if someone hadn't
mentioned to me, I don't know.
I took vacation, quote vacation,
just because something happened
and the only way I could heal
appropriately was taking the time off.
And, man, we're sitting here talking
about just the, the body aspects of it.
Your, your head needs to heal, but
yeah, your head sometimes needs to heal.
It's a mental health issue.
Taking the time away from your work can
heal more than just your physical brain.
It can also heal just your
mental outlook on, on your life.
So I thought that was a really great
piece of feedback from the community.
Now, getting into the conversation
is just time, time, time.
A lot of folks said it's difficult to
find the time because if you're a member
of the MTI community, you might not
necessarily have a real full time job
and The biggest benefit of having a real
full time job is that you get to pay
time off PTO and that's great because
you could say, I want to take a day off
to go out with the kids, go hiking, go
to amusement park, go do something fun.
And other times you can say,
oh, I want to take a week off.
We're going out of state to visit some
family or relatives, and I'm just going to
take that way from work and no one's going
to bother me because I'm taking the PTO.
If you're like me, I'm a independent
consultant that worked for myself.
A lot of you are freelancers, consultants,
or you're building income in other non
traditional ways from the full time job.
When you're taking the time away
from work, you're essentially just
cutting off the faucet that is money.
So if you're not working,
money is not coming in.
We could have an entire discussion of just
about how do you prepare for those times?
That's not necessarily what I want
to talk about today, but you should
be thinking about this How do you put
money away for the case where you want
to take time off or the cases where?
You need to take time off most
importantly, so it's Time is money
is really ringing true to a lot of
the independent folks out there.
And it's not that just time is money
and that you were when you're working,
you're making money and you need to
keep up this trend of money coming in.
Stuff is expensive.
So if you're not bringing money,
are you paying your mortgage?
Are you paying for your rent?
Are you paying for your utilities?
Are you putting clothes on your kids back?
Are you putting food on the table?
There's stuff.
That needs to be paid for even
if the money's not coming in.
So how do you account for, for all that?
So it's difficult for us to take the
time away from work if we're not in
these full time job PTO environments.
So the number one thing that a lot of
people said in all these cases was I wish
I took more time off and relate to that
a hundred percent I will often look at my
calendar and See that I have week after
week after week of just work work work I
have times I'm traveling for conferences,
but I usually work during the conference.
So I'm not taking the time off there and
Sometimes that bleeds over into weekends.
So I'm working on weekends and
It's just always go, go, go.
And I'll look at the calendar
and go, Okay, well, when in this
time can I take a long weekend?
Maybe take a Friday off or
take a Thursday Friday off?
And the answer is usually not very often
because the work needs to get done.
I need the money to keep coming in.
Let's fast forward to the Italy trip
that I'm currently on and the amount
of planning that went into that trip.
So we started that planning back
in I believe it was March 2023.
My wife and I decided we
wanted to take this trip.
We started putting money away for it.
We started working with a travel agent.
And once we got all the checks
marked, I then went to the clients
that I was working with and told
them, Here's a couple months notice.
I'm not going to be
available these two weeks.
Let's do everything that we
need to prepare for me leaving.
But when I'm out of the country,
I'm not responding to your emails.
I'm not returning your calls.
I'm not going to work on
these projects at all.
Just pretend I don't exist.
And that took, that
took a lot of planning.
And sometimes it's, it's difficult
to put that much time and effort
into planning your time away.
So everyone that says, I wish I took more
time off, we found that a lot of folks are
more content to taking just single days.
So taking a Friday every month or so off
in addition to their normal weekends.
Uh, and I think that's a good rule.
Some folks said they try to take
two weeks off minimum a year.
Also a good rule, but also remember
there's 52 weeks in a year.
So taking just two weeks off means you are
pushing the other 50 weeks of the year and
that, that could drive you a little bit
batty if, if you think about it that way.
So try to strive to take
more, more time off.
Um, in dating relationships, I know
this is in a relationship podcast,
there's this thing called the two, two,
two rule where you and your partner.
Should take a date every two weeks and
you should have a date You should take
a long weekend trip every two months and
then you should take a week long vacation
every two years I think that similar
concept can be used for just taking your
PTO Make sure you're giving yourself that
quality time Every couple weeks every
couple months in every couple years to
just get out and get away And I really A
ton to just taking the personal day off
because this feeds into the next question
that We asked, which was, what do you
do with the time that you're taking?
And it really depends.
If you're taking the week long vacation,
it's probably a destination trip.
You're going somewhere,
whether it's somewhere fun like
Italy or it's somewhere fun.
Like we took the kids to
universal studios for a week.
That was a lot of fun.
Sometimes it's visiting your in laws
in Michigan in the middle of winter.
That doesn't seem as appealing as.
Say, riding roller coasters
in Universal Studios.
But, you know, everyone makes
their own fun in different ways.
But, I digress.
A lot of folks seem to appreciate
more of the single day.
Take a, take a Friday every month
and spin that doing something
that isn't work related for me.
A lot of the time is
used on house projects.
Just last weekend I took a afternoon
and I fixed the fence in the backyard
because my dog who's running around
here somewhere decided to destroy a
couple of the fence pickets and it was
just something that had to get done.
So I fixed the fence.
Some folks said they used it to do
some learning, some intensive learning.
Is there a new hobby you
want to try or pick up?
Use that extra day to go pick up
that, that new bit of knowledge
that you didn't have before.
Uh, some folks just like
thinking about the, the future.
What do I want to work on?
And this very much fits
into the MTI mindset.
Is there a book you want to write
or a course you want to build?
Is there a conference talk that
you are thinking about doing or
submitting to a different conference?
Taking some quality time to sit
down and think intensely about these
different topics is super beneficial
to you and to everything that
you're going to do in the future.
But This is a very long winded solo show
and I'm going to try to wrap this up
quickly by saying that if you haven't
put some time on your calendar recently
to just take a day off for yourself.
And when I say yourself,
it could be just you.
It could be with your.
Spouse and your kids, your partner
and your kids, your best friend.
It could be just with your dog.
Make sure you take that personal
time away from the work that you're
doing and use it as a moment to
just refresh, reset your mind.
So you can come back a little
bit stronger afterwards.
and do better work in the long run.
With all that said, thank you so
much for hanging out with me today.
Next week, we're going to have
another guest interview and I think
you're going to enjoy it immensely.
If you're not a member of the
multi threaded income discord,
you should really do that today.
Go to mti.
to slash discord and let's chat
about taking time off work.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me.
See y'all next time.
You've been listening to the
multi threaded income podcast.
I really hope that this podcast
has been useful for you.
If it has, please take a moment to leave a
review wherever you get your podcast from.
And don't forget the
conversation doesn't stop here.
Join us on our discord at mti.
to slash discord.
I've been your host Kevin Griffin
and we'll see you next week.
Cha ching!