I travel each year in early March. I’ve never been a fan of winter weather, and I know that a few days of sunshine is the best way to help me rest and recharge.
In 2025, I packed my laptop and set it up in my hotel room when I arrived.
“Just in case,” I told myself.
I was able to stay in vacation mode for the most part. But having it sitting there made it far too tempting to check in more than I should have. After all, it only takes a few minutes to answer an email. Or five emails. Or more.
This past March, I brought my laptop on vacation again.
But something was different. It stayed in my bag for the entire six-day trip.
I was oddly proud of that.
Not because I was avoiding work. Not because I don’t care about it. Quite the opposite. I care deeply about the work I do, the people I work with and our industry. But for six days, I trusted that things would be okay without me checking in every few hours.
I’m still working toward the day when I leave my laptop at home entirely. Maybe 2027 will be the year.
As it turns out, my take-the-laptop-anyway mentality is not unusual. Research suggests that getting away from work is easier said than done. Multiple surveys have found that many professionals continue checking email while on vacation, whether out of habit, curiosity or concern about what might be waiting for them when they get back. Global recruitment firm Robert Walters reports that 66% of Canadian professionals check work email while away, while SurveyMonkey found that 54% of workers do the same. The exact percentages may differ, but the takeaway is clear in that a significant number of us are still mentally connected to work even when we are physically somewhere else.
The University of Georgia (UGA) says you may want to rethink that approach. A meta-analysis of 32 studies from nine countries shows that how we spend our vacations — and how well we disconnect from work while away — can significantly affect how restorative that time off actually is.
“If you’re not at work but you’re thinking about work on vacation, you might as well be at the office,” said Ryan Grant, a doctoral student in psychology in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and lead author of the research review. “Vacations are one of the few opportunities we get to fully just disconnect from work.”
Ideally, that means not answering emails, taking work calls or dwelling on work-related issues. For ticketing professionals, however, complete separation can be difficult. Many of us travel to and spend time at live events. When entertainment is both your profession and your passion, it can be difficult to leave ticketing entirely behind. What matters most is not achieving perfect detachment but reducing the mental load enough to allow for genuine recovery.
“We think working more is better, but we actually perform better by taking care of ourselves,” Grant adds. “We need to break up these intense periods of work with intense periods of rest and recuperation.”
The UGA researchers also found that people tend to experience the greatest benefits when vacations include activities they genuinely enjoy and when they can choose how they spend their time. In other words, recovery is not necessarily about doing nothing. It is about stepping away from work demands and spending time in ways that feel meaningful and personally rewarding.
For ticketing professionals, that finding is particularly relevant. We work in an industry built around experiences. We help create concerts, sporting events, theatre performances and attractions that people look forward to all year.
The irony is that while we spend our careers helping others enjoy those experiences, we can sometimes struggle to give ourselves permission to fully enjoy our own time away.
Whether it is a weekend at the cottage, a family vacation, a road trip, a staycation or simply a few days without checking email, taking time off is not a sign of disengagement. It is an investment in our ability to return to work with fresh energy.
Time away also does not have to mean disappearing for two weeks. Sometimes it is a long weekend. Sometimes it is simply deciding not to check email after dinner or leaving the laptop closed for a day.
Small boundaries can create meaningful opportunities for recovery.
Will I leave my laptop at home on my next vacation?
Maybe.
But for now, I’m taking the fact that it stayed in my bag for six days as a win.
And sometimes recovery starts with small victories.
The emails and the events will still be there when we get back.
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