A random week by the beach
Thoughts on strategic vacations and time off as an entrepreneur
Happy Wednesday folks,
A bit later in the week for my weekly post, but there’s a decent reason why.
Let’s jump in:
Story: why I’m in Florida for a random week in Feb
Normally my weekly update comes out Monday morning but sending it a bit later this week because I’m on a half-holiday.
What’s a half-holiday?
Good question, it’s something I just made up this week because I’m visiting my dad in Florida for the week and kind of working, but kind of vacationing. If you’ve been on my list for a while you know that I had my honeymoon in late November, so we didn’t end up doing anything over the Christmas holiday/New Year period.
This is when we’d normally go down to Florida to hang out with my dad for a week and escape the Canadian winter, but since we’d just gotten back from a trip, we figured we’d split them up and come visit him in February.
And an extra week in the sun during winter time goes a long way when you’re used to the Canadian winter.
The timing is also pretty good because we’ve got 2 huge features we’re going to launch at Visto in the next 1-2 weeks, so I’m taking some time to relax/spend time with family before we have a big marketing and sales push as soon as the features go live. Also gives me time to brainstorm some creative ways to market them too…
I don’t often take week-long (or more) vacations so close together, but the timing worked out well and now I know my tank will be full for an exciting few months ahead (and beyond).
Still doing a few hours of work each day (mostly for calls that had already been scheduled or important tasks that would otherwise hold up our developers), but “when in Rome”, also making time for rest, vitamin D, food and family time.
Key takeaway: it’s not always about the grind
In that post that I linked to above I talked about being intentional with your time off, especially as an entrepreneur (because it’s easy to get caught in the #hustle culture, which I do think is a good thing in some ways).
But being flexible and smart about your calendar and rest can be a huge benefit too. Working at sub-optimal levels of energy and/or burning out can have very negative effects on your business.
I like to approach holidays as a yearly exercise where I’ll review what trips - if any - we have planned and then schedule things with that in mind. For example, we had our honeymoon end of November, and our trip right now in mid-Feb, so I’m pushing out any additional time off (beyond a random day off) until at least June.
I also try to take into account business activities. As I mentioned earlier we’re launching 2 huge features at Visto in the next 1-2 weeks, so it’s great to take a little bit of extra time off before so I’m running on all cylinders for the next few months while promoting them and riding the marketing/sales wave.
Try to keep these things in mind if you can!
Content for the week:
Vlog: wasn’t able to record a vlog this week as I’m travelling, so linking to the episode from last week that you might find interesting:
Book(s): I finished Iacocca: An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca and William Novak, a book I would highly recommend to anyone interested in business, leadership, biographies or cars.
It was fascinating to read his account of his rise in the ranks at Ford, how/why he was ultimately fired, and then the story of how he joined Chrysler and helped save the company from bankruptcy. I learned a lot about business, management, people and the car industry.
I also really enjoyed his casual, fun storytelling. Highly recommended read!
Tiktok: my most viewed Tiktok vid from last week was this clip about Charlie Munger and how lucky we are to having such useful info at our fingertips.
Thanks as always for following along on my journey and have an awesome week,
- Josh Schachnow
Canadian immigration lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai
If you’re looking for more of my help, you can check out:
My immigration tech platform, Visto, that helps Canadian immigration firms prep and file applications much quicker.
Make sure you’re subscribed on Youtube where I post the weekly vlog and am also posting shorter snippets of my tips/advice as Youtube Shorts!