Vacation, Time Management, and Life

There’s something about standing on a quiet beach, looking out at the ocean, that makes you think differently about time.

In our day-to-day lives, we’re surrounded by pings, meetings, inboxes, and endless to-do lists. We measure time in 30-minute calendar blocks or in how quickly we can clear out our notifications. But when you step away—when you put your feet in the sand and watch the waves—you realize that life isn’t meant to be managed in minutes. It’s meant to be lived in moments.

On vacation, the rules change. You don’t think about how productive you’re being—you think about how present you are. The sun rises and sets on its own schedule, and the ocean doesn’t care about deadlines. What matters is whether you slow down enough to notice the breeze through the palm trees or the way the horizon changes color before a storm rolls in.

The truth is, time management isn’t about squeezing more tasks into fewer hours. It’s about directing your best energy. At work, that might mean setting aside time for deep focus instead of getting overwhelmed by emails. At home, it might mean putting the phone away at dinner. And on vacation, it means permitting yourself to do nothing at all.

Life is short, about 4,000 weeks if you’re lucky. Most of those weeks won’t be spent on a beach, but they can still carry that same sense of presence if you let them. The challenge is to bring a little of that “vacation mindset” back with you: less rushing, more noticing. Less reacting, more choosing.

Because in the end, time management isn’t about managing the clock, it’s about controlling yourself. And life, much like the ocean, will keep moving whether or not you’re watching.

So the question becomes: are you rushing through it, or are you actually living it?