I spent the last month completely offline, not working. I hadn’t done that in the 8 years since i founded Techstars. Last year, we raised a new venture fund and I was on the road twice as much as normal. When we closed it in January, I promised myself and my family some time for rejuvenation last this year. Needless to say, it was amazing. I feel very refreshed and energized, and I’m raring to get back at it today.
I’m not going to detail the time off. Instead, I thought I’d record a few random takeaways.
Time to disconnect: People may ask how long it took me to truly disconnect. I’d put it at about 5 days. For the first 5 days, I woke up thinking about work, and instinctively reaching for my phone to check email and other messages. After that, it was completely gone until I was flying home. I think this worked both ways at the start, because various co-workers contacted me on each of the first 5 days via text message – probably also instinctively, but also due to a couple of small emergencies.
Emails: I didn’t check my work email once while i was gone. Only about 1,200 emails came in over 30 days. Typically I get about 300-500 per day. It turns out if you don’t email as much, you don’t get as much email. Well, that, plus tons of great co-workers covering for you and dropping you quickly to bcc. I sent 44 personal emails in those 30 days and received about 25 back. Most of those were scheduling activities.
Weight: I gained 1.8 pounds during my 30 days of sabbatical, which is under 1% for me. I put this in the miracle category, the way I ate on vacation. I was able to play tennis about twice a week, so that must have helped. I think I ate ice cream in the middle of the day on about 75% of the days (exclusively chocolate, of course, with one exception which was a clear mistake).
Massages: I got two eighty-minute massages in the last month. I’ve put it on my list to get at least one of those a month from here on out. I think it can really help with the pains of too much travel.
Books: I read five. My favorite was Give and Take. Highly recommended for everyone. A ton of actionable stuff in there for our #givefirst organization at Techstars. One I re-read was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Hadn’t read that in 20 years. If you’re in that bucket, re-read it. I took away many new meanings later in my life than i had before.
People might wonder if any new inspiration or “aha moments” came to me while not thinking about work. Yes, a few. I won’t detail them here. It seems true that inspiration does occasionally hit when you’re not focused on it at all.
I want to thank my co-workers for allowing this and covering for me while I was out for a month, most notably my incredible assistant and my partners. One thing I did think about on the time away was the people that I missed. I’m very lucky to work with such a great and dedicated time that lives by the Give First mantra. It’s nice that Techstars and our venture fund is at a point where stepping away for a month is just not a problem. I think that’s a sign of a healthy business. Things seem to have gone very smoothly. Perhaps too smoothly. 🙂
