Unlearning Work: How to Stop Obsessing About Work on Your Sabbatical
So I had cycled for six months: from London to Istanbul and from Egypt to Oman.
And only then, from some dusty moon-like Omani landscape, did I finally stop thinking about work! Until then, it plagued me.
Granted, I was obsessed with work while I lived in London. I trudged along pavements with ICPs and value propositions spinning in my head. I was proud to be productive. I breathed work, and I sweated it. Maybe more accurately, work breathed me — I became its vehicle.
I did whatever my inbox instructed me to.
The Tinnitus of Work-Thoughts
Consequently, I thought about working while floating across the English Channel and the Red Sea. On a hot air balloon trip over the Valley of the Kings, I wondered aloud, "What would my MRR have been had I continued to work?" No other tourist on the balloon ride responded! Sitting under the bright stars in the desert in Oman, hopelessly alone, adoring of nature, I reflected: "Should we have built our front end with no code or used Tailwind?"
And so it went, kilometre after kilometre.
The Moment of Silence
Finally, in the north of Oman, high in the mountains surrounded by an oasis of palm trees, I stopped thinking about work. It was like a humming background noise was switched off. A burrrrr, like a fridge in a hotel bedroom, clicked and… quiet.
Where those busy words were, a sort of void, a spaciousness which I hadn't until then met, appeared. Where my obsession was, an expansiveness flowered.
How to Disconnect: Practical Steps for Sabbatical Seekers
This post explains how you can get to that sense of peace, empty of work and open to opportunity, sooner. You don't have to wait!
1. Unsubscribe from Work-Related Emails
You probably won't have access to your emails when you leave for your sabbatical. Even so, you might still mindlessly open the Mail app and pull down to refresh. In the pull-down, you'll invite a stack of newsletters you've subscribed to. These are often very interesting and useful when working. You'll learn about Product Hunt's best of 2024, or get product insights from Lenny's Newsletter.
UNSUBSCRIBE from all of these immediately.
The point of a sabbatical is not to build a better product; it is about finding the space so you can hear your too-often silenced intuition.
Your intuition is probably shouting about what it wants to do, but it's like you've put on ear defenders to focus on the work at hand. And that's fine, but these ear defenders are stuffed full of tips and tricks to help you be more productive, which is why they work so well at deafening you from your intuitive voice. Take them off by unsubscribing. You can re-subscribe later.
2. Turn Off Your Phone
Your mind equates your phone to your job. With our phones, we are highly effective. And yet, checking our phones in the morning and late at night is unhealthy.
The wonderful thing about a sabbatical is there are so few demands on your time. You have no deadline, you're only required to turn up to take flights or hotel bookings. Therefore, besides chatting with friends at home, our phones need not dictate our lives.
Turn them off, and fill them with screen-time blockers. I use Screen Zen, which is free and excellent. Keep them away from you.
3. Avoid Work-Related Conversations
So much of our status comes down to what we work on. We are of high status if we work on a cool project, if our startup's name is recognised and we can say we are the Founder or CEO or whatever. This is valid in the normal day-to-day.
A sabbatical is a chance to experiment with different identities. Maybe you are just 'Sophie' and not 'Sophie, Cofounder and CEO'.
Maybe this week, you don't ask what people do but how they feel.
You ask not what they will work on next, but what art they love to create.
And when somebody asks you what you do, just gently avoid answering with your work, but rather answer that you read or write poetry or that you're just a very appreciative person!
A Personal Revelation
At the beginning of my break, I found myself pitching myself to strangers. In Lyon, on some dusty autumnal evening, I sat in a cafe, and a new friend asked me what I did. I told him about my life, my startup, and my success! And it wasn't interesting to him because his world was so far from mine that the things I thought were status were not on his spectrum.
I was reminded that 6.5 billion people don't use LinkedIn.
At that moment, I realised I had nothing to prove; my past was gone, my present was my sabbatical, and I was here! Since then, I avoided the question of work, and it helped a lot.
Embracing the Sabbatical Mindset
In the end, a true sabbatical is about listening to your soul. It's about creating real, meaningful space where your authentic self can breathe, explore, and rediscover what truly matters beyond professional achievements.