I recently wrote about the Death of the Away Message. Communications are so pervasive, so ubiquitous, so tethering, that we never really can disconnect – if that’s what we seek. Someone replied with a gentle suggestion regarding my vacation: “Unplug a little if you can.”

Commentary PictureA kind enough nudge from someone seemingly concerned about my enjoying a little R&R during my vacation.

But to many home officers, micropreneurs and small business owners, a simple, paradoxical equation prevails when presented the prospect of a vacation:

Time Away From the Office = Reductions in Billable Work = Lost Income Potential / Revenues

Multiply that equation by three weeks on the road, and the result can be downright devastating to the bottom line. To paraphrase my friend Jim Blasingame at the Small Business Advocate, “As a small business owner, if you don’t kill, you don’t eat.”

When you’re not in the office, or away from your phone, or unable (or unwilling) to respond to emails, sure you’ll avoid some correspondence that you’d prefer to miss. But what about prospect queries, or clients calling with an assignment, or an ally looking to partner on a new project?

In the world of (some) creatives out there, those are work opportunities we’d prefer not to lose.

So where’s the balance between finding away time – and forfeiting one’s bounty?

My solution: The (limited) workation.

– Work to your innate circadian rhythm – and around that of your travel partners. I’m an early riser, and often can get a half-day’s work done in two hours before sun-up – and well before the family’s awakened. That leaves the rest of the day unburdened by work-related issues.

– Check email. Really, it’s OK. Checking email every so often each work day helps ensure little to nothing vital slips through the cracks. Respond to important items; call back if absolutely necessary.

– A little work never hurt anyone – and can help business. An e-alert I subscribe to came through today with a tidbit that I know a client would like to blog about. So I forwarded him the link. That’s “work” by his definition (though I won’t bill for it), and will earn me a tip o’ the hat in return.

– No work can’t hurt either. Double-negative notwithstanding, saying “To heck with work” is OK, too.

– My trip, my work, my decision. I realized long ago that leaving my laptop behind leaves me with a case of anxiety. “I could be working now – if only I’d brought my PC.” Or I could be planning our next excursion, or buying tickets to an amusement or national park, or reading the news, or filing a story for a client while my family’s sleeping.

What I won’t do it check voice mail from the road. If it was important enough, they would have listened to my outbound greeting and emailed me. If there’s one thing I unplug while on the road – at least for work-related purposes, it’s the phone. If I lose a bit of business because the caller was too dim or busy or scattered to hear my request that he/she email me, whatever.

But that’s an equation I don’t fiddle with.