Sabbatical
Doing more, after doing less
Hello Pals,
Are any of you familiar with The Business of Home? It’s the true media of record for designers - news, tiny bit of gossip, job listings - if our industry ever decided to unionize this would be how it would get done. Anywho, last week I taped an episode of the Trade Tales Podcast and it was WILD. I sat in a closet with sparky and thoughtful host Kaitlin Petersen speaking directly into my ears, responding to my voice, and by the end I felt like I was a contestant on Love is Blind. Kaitlin asked if I could tape a little longer and I thought to myself… I have no idea what time it is, I’m in a windowless casino of vulnerability and she is my only tether to reality so of course I will do whatever she says! I now see how dating show contestants commit to strangers based on their voice. Happily I was just able to open the door and get on with my day.
Her starter question was about a “profound business pivot you made that put your firm on a different trajectory”, and omg the timing! I was already planning on writing about my sabbatical for The MiniMag - I have so much to say about the absolute wildflower meadow of seeds that got planted during that time, and the lovely ways these seeds are still popping up. Here is the short version…
The beginning of the story is demented; it dawned on me that I needed to change things in early 2022 when I had Covid that just lingered, and I saw an ambulance driving and thought “mmm - must be nice” because I wanted to be unreachable and blameless. I couldn’t imagine how my firm would work without me but also, I am not so unique. Smart creative people take sabbaticals all the time and come back super fresh! I wanted that to be me, I wanted to figure it out, and a year later I did. I was completely off the grid for the first quarter-ish of 2023.
At the beginning my fear was that I didn’t program the break enough and that I would get itchy. I’ve never taken meaningful time off and I only had a loose agenda, but the days filled easily with a little piano, some low-stakes online gardening classes, exercising, picking my kids up from school and making nice dinners. I trained for a ski race, took a trip to Egypt, did many routine health appointments that I don’t understand how working people are expected to stay on top of (mammogram/colonoscopy/teeth cleanings/mole checks/mole removals/psychic healers) and generally unspooled a bit, but not 100 percent. I still felt busy, but in a mellow “who do I want to have lunch with this week?” way. My life still felt important.
By the end I was scared I wasn’t ready to come back - that the sabbatical didn’t work. And maybe I wasn’t fully restored but what I got was better - it was the gift of coming back and seeing, realizing, feeling in my bones that the wheels were on the bus. Firmly, solidly, in all ways. Project wise, office wise, externally, internally. My office thrived without me there every second, smart people were making great choices - and ever since I have been free to expand the firm in ways I always wanted but didn’t have time for.
On the podcast I talk about the practical pivots that came from the profound pivot (the sabbatical); cutting back on email, hiring a coach, joining a Forum group. These have yoinked the trajectory of my firm so dramatically and interestingly, but I’m aiming to keep this issue un-trunkated so if you want to go deep join me on the pod, it will go live on September 25 and you know I will post about it on IG. For now, let’s reflect on the meadow, specifically on the biggest flower in the meadow: my motherflipping book deal.
FEATURE: (Working Title) ATMOSPHERE
Could I have buried the lede anymore? This is a dream come true! I’ve always wanted to have a book, more recently I’ve thought I might be the one who would write the book, and now it’s going to happen.
This relates to the sabbatical because it never would have happened if I didn’t free up some mental energy to try and be creative in new ways.
More excerpts from the proposal… I’m so proud of every page.
One of my deep fears is that I’m going to boff the acknowledgement section of this book that is two years away from being published. Already so many people have helped me but the core book team is these in-season peaches; Hadley Keller, Amy Harper, Vanessa Saba, Kate Woodrow. All that work to catch the eye of terrific-on-Zoom Laura Dozier at Abrams, I’m so happy to be working on this together. Thanks for taking a chance.
FIVE THINGS: PLAN YOUR SABBATICAL
Do we all know our Enneagrams? My friends are so obsessed, as am I, and I’m curious about the number of everyone I know. Please take yours and report back, I’m a 3 and I find 3’s delight in meeting other 3’s because we’re so embarrassed and delighted to find each other, especially if we think the other seems sane and/or is getting a lot done. We keep ourselves warm at night with achievement, which is why when I went on sabbatical I couldn’t just “not work”, I had to have micro and macro to-do lists, and a big picture goal of this being good for my firm in the long-run.
Here is a free Enneagram test: pls report results in comments, who are all you fine people?
I watched this Stefan Sagmeister movie on a plane years ago and never forgot it. He also did a Ted Talk about sabbaticals; the movie, obviously, is more artful and interesting.
Get yourself an absurd sports goal. Especially if you’re a woman or a parent or perhaps older than an Olympian. Nothing sizzles like thinking of yourself like an athlete - it’s very rare and people will be so happy for you! I am lit up by my friend’s audacious goals; to run the Boston Marathon, to swim the English Channel with a group of like-minded 13-year olds, to compete at the US Senior Games in Javelin, to ride the rim of Crater Lake with a group of like-minded 75-year olds. My personal goal was to compete at NASTAR Nationals. Very much easier than it sounds but look how happy I am - fastest woman on the slopes on my day! I ended up with a Silver and I will never tire of telling people this fact.
The MiniMag has already covered travel, but I recommend a solo trip as a part of a restorative sabbatical. Picking up and moving for a few months could also be great but I sense you might drown in logistics and not really heal thyself.
Try blocking three months off in one of your shared calendars a year from now. Trust me, whoever notices first is going to be psyched and it will snowball.
Thanks as always for reading, this is the one year anniversary of The MiniMag and I’m so thrilled to have thousands of you out there just silent-bobbing in the comment section but telling me you like it IRL! Part of the impetus behind starting this was to practice writing, and maybe, maybe try to get a book deal, and just like 2006’s The Secret - it worked. Now I have to write an entire book and turn it in by March, pray for me! These low-stakes posts take me a week and have almost no meat at all.
Love you all so much,
Last Word: A nip of my omnivore’s book club where I never tag the author because I like to let ’er rip on all books great and sleazy. Almost 150 book reviews of all flavors saved in stories.
You’ve read this book already, right? Everyone finds themselves in it somehow - I read it during my sabbatical and felt very certain the characters needed to work on their work/life balance. Everyone seems to love it; just made the NYT Top books of the century so far. In retrospect I give it a 5/5
Congrats on the book deal! March is PLENTY OF TIME--really. If you had longer it would just expand to fill the time. Can't wait to hear your interview with Kaitlin later this month.
So maybe I should just print this whole shebang, tape it to my mirror, rinse and repeat….This is like the Wonder Weeks for adults. Congrats my friend.