Working on holiday?

I recently read an interesting (and possibly contentious?) article in The Times weekend supplement about the benefits of working on holiday! Apparently, it’s not particularly good for us to go completely into sloth mode. We need some down-time to become refreshed and renewed (and allow new ideas about work to come in while we are rested and relaxed),  but apparently, it is no bad thing to be keeping the work-brain active, even when you are away.  I’m glad to hear it, because I did have my laptop out while I was on holiday.

When I was a teacher, the periods of work and rest were marked out by terms and school-holidays, but with my self-employed hat on, the scenery is a bit different. I do need to work (a bit) all the time. I’ve just got back from holiday in France, and have some interesting textile-y adventures to share over the next few weeks.

Although I didn’t write quite as many blog posts as usual, I did prepare some future ones and I produced my monthly newsletter for August to send out to my subscribers. I did ‘work’ every day, in that I am continuing with my ‘Draw every day, draw every way’ challenge (more about this here) and while I was on holiday in July the drawing medium was ballpoint pen: one each of red, blue and black. The prompts were interesting too. This is ‘A Punk Florist’

and then there was ‘An Astronaut Dog’

Now August has started (and thankfully I am conveniently home next to a stock of interesting papers) the medium is collage. Now, this one I love!

So how about you? Do you ‘switch off’ digitally when you are on holiday? How does it work for you if you are self-employed? Answers on a post-card please (or – more practically – on a comment form below).

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This is my ‘Little Leaf red’ fabric design. You can find it here.