Aspen: A “Workcation”
When I recently heard the word “workcation” referring to digital nomad adventures, I immediately disliked the concept UNTIL I arrived in Aspen and began to embrace it! As a person who identifies myself through my job, I’m usually pretty intense and think that hard work is demonstrated through my commitment (and usually long hours).
However, as many others around the world, I’ve been working from home for 2 years and have been struggling with separating my home life from my work life. Prior to this adventure, back in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood, my office was located in the living room. Burnout and a sense of loneliness despite hours of back-to-back Zoom meeting was making me rethink my “connectedness” to work and to question if it was healthy.
Aspen cured all of the challenges of work and personal life bleeding into each other.
Staring at some of the most incredible mountains and scenery as my back drop, it was one of the easiest decisions to shut down my computer by 4pm MST, hit the mountains for an afternoon hike and not open my computer until 7am the next morning. It was extremely liberating. And although I’d put in a full day, the separation between work and the outdoors truly seems to embody the concept of “workcation.”
In Aspen this separation was easy. In New York City, not so much. As we move across the country, and without those spectacular mountains calling to me from the window, I will have to be more cognizant and deliberate to create the healthy separation between work and personal time.
