Obsessive-Compulsive ADD Workaholic Vacations

People ask: why are you driving 14 hours to…anywhere? Ah, but that is 14 hours of talking and thinking and pulling over on the highway to jot down a few ideas (or to call my own voicemail and leave myself reminders of ideas without needing to stop) and listen to talk radio from which other ideas come. And then it’s all about generating lists: lists of new ideas for blogs, ideas for articles, ideas for videos, lists of emails to send, things to do, people to contact. Once we arrive at our destination, it’ll be a “quick” online session to update, organize, check a few items off my lists (which then need to be updated), investigate a few partially formed ideas, prioritize the lists once more, and talk about the ideas with family members (the ones who didn’t just drive 14 hours through 3 different states with me)

Sadly, this is not much of an exaggeration. I do enjoy taking some time off with the family, and I love road trips. But I can’t ever seem to get too far away from work. Is it wrong to enjoy what you do? I find myself going stir crazy after more than 2 or 3 days. I’m the guy in Hawaii, sitting by the pool complaining that the wi-fi signal is not strong enough and that it keeps dropping my VPN connection.

Hopefully this trip will be different. I’m trying to have a plan in place each day, and am intentionally looking for activities that are well outside of wireless and cell phone range. Hiking in Yosemite. Riding dirt bikes in the Sierra foothills. Maybe a trip down to the Marin County coast.

This non-working thing…..I’m willing to give it a try. I’m just not sure it’s for me.