EP 68: Hotels & Hustle – Get Away to Get It Done with a Workcation

Alison: [00:00:00] Hey guys, welcome back. Okay, this episode, we are gonna have some fun because this episode is all about workcation, like a work, vacation, work treat, whatever you wanna call it. Um, we tend to gravitate to Workcation, so I’ve taken a few of ’em myself. Um, I’ve taken ’em, I’ve done ’em in Tennessee, done ’em in locally. I, and I’m here in Hawaii. What about you, Melissa? Melissa Arlena: I definitely have done kind of like Tennessee. Um, I have always wanted to do one around here, but I just have not gotten to do it. But I am Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: week doing a Workcation and I pick the beach. So I’m going to the beach for my Workcation, and I’m excited. Okay. Alison: That’s awesome. That’s gonna be really good. Okay, so what exactly, how do you define a work? What is it? Melissa Arlena: So to me, a workcation is where I’m gonna go somewhere fun and nice, but I’m gonna work like I’m Alison: Yep. Melissa Arlena: when I think about it, I want like a nice hotel because I’m gonna be spending time in the [00:01:00] hotel. Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: I want something that, you know, is gonna, when I walk out the door, I’m not walking into like a yucky area where I’m like, Ugh, I wanna, you know, I want it to be work. Yeah, I remember, uh, there was a lady that, I can’t remember where I came across her, but she had a podcast episode about how she would take these work vacations where she would run an Airbnb and she would just do like DoorDash and have food brought in. And she would pick like something really cute and fun, like a really cute little place to stay at, and then she would just work from there the whole time. So I, that’s what I think of it as. I think of a workcation and it’s not your. Like for me, when I’m gonna go it, like I’m gonna pick one project to work on. I’m not Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: and like edit unless I have like Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: sessions to edit. That kind of thing. It’s gotta Alison: Maybe. Melissa Arlena: this is what it’s for. Alison: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Why? So? Yeah, I agree. I’ve, I’ve done them. So we did one sort of quasi together where we went to a conference and then we had, you had time on the back end when I had left, and vice versa. I think I had time on the front end. I can’t even remember. Um, I’ve [00:02:00] done, and usually for me it’s just one night away. Um, sometimes too, uh, it, it depends on what your family can handle. Right. But it is, yeah. To your point, it is. One big project. Um, so that gets into the why, like why, why do a workation? So for me, I’m moving my business. I usually take multiple work to launch my business. So whether it’s, um. The blogging side, relaunching a whole new website or deep diving and doing a ton of research on location and insurance and policies and all that, all that stuff. Or it might be all of those things, like all of those things need to be like, figured out and squared away. Um, those are the kinds of things I would do on a workcation. Um, and I make a list. I’m strategic. I for, for weeks ahead of time. I will write down the things that I cannot do right now because they’re gonna take too much time. I will create a list of, of tasks for that 24 48 hours where I’m gonna be focused, um, to make sure [00:03:00] that I’m not doing daily tasks on my workation. I am solely focused on this big giant project. Um Melissa Arlena: Yeah, and I think those daily tasks goes into, well, why take a work vacation or vacation when you’re just working from your home anyway? And it’s because during the normal day, you’ve got kids to drop off at school, you’ve got kids to pick up from school, you’ve got dinner that you’ve got make, you’ve got laundry, you’ve got. A point, you got other Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: to interrupt your day. So Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: you get away from all of those other distractions and just focus for a period of time. I did forget, I actually just came from Alabama from another work retreat type thing, Alison: Oh yeah. Hello. Yeah, so, and it’s, it’s bigger projects like designing and launching a whole new website or reformatting your, your existing website for a new location is not a short and easy task. You are going to get. So confused by what you’re doing, you’re gonna get eyeball deep into like, God, did I do the alt text for this page, or this page? And there’s [00:04:00] just so many tiny tasks that have to be systematically tracked and done that you cannot go do a little bit here and there, a little bit here and there, and expect to do a decent job at it. You’ve got to focus and, and finish, start and finish in one setting. So whether you break that down page by page or task by task. You need to get away and focus, and it is not, you’re not responding to clients during this time or editing unless you’re doing like Santam minis and you’re gonna for. Melissa Arlena: I will say I did about this too. Another way for a work patient is to send your family away. Like I’ve done that and that’s how I did my website when we, when you brought that up, reminded me when we were moving to South Florida. Um, I sent the husband and the kids off to go hang out with my mother-in-law for her birthday, and I stayed home. I was like, I’m not gonna go. I was like, I happy birthday to her. I’m not gonna go. I’m gonna stay here and I’m gonna do a whole new website. And I changed the design and I was like, and now it’s Alison: [00:05:00] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Melissa Arlena: that’s a big thing. Alison: Absolutely. So when, when and where do you do this? I got some tips on this when we talked about when really largely depends on your family and what’s gonna work for your family. So I, I have gone on weekdays, I’ve also done a Sunday to a Monday thing. Um. I did a, I did a, maybe, gosh, I can’t remember what days I did the cabanas, but I did a one night stay at the cabanas, but it was really like 36 to 48 hours. I did another time where I went on a Sunday morning, I think my family went to church and I went to the hotel. Um, and then I was gone calm, got them up to school. ’cause there were no, there’s no sports and activities on Sunday evening. Right. And so he took care of them, got them up to school on Monday, and then I picked them up from school. So it was just a little bit longer than 24 hours. Not quite 36 hours. But to your point, the hotel absolutely [00:06:00] matters. Um, because you have that, you’re gonna be gone, but that room is not available until three or four o’clock and then you have to be up at 11 or so. Um, that was weird. It’s on do not disturb. Sorry, Caroline, I’m gonna start over. So that room is not gonna be open until three or four in the afternoon, and you have to be out by 10 or 11, but you need those hours between 11 and three to be working. So you need a comfortable lobby. So Melissa Arlena: Yes. Alison: me, what I realized is I, we’ve got this place on base that’s called the Cabanas here in Hawaii, which is fantastic. It’s like $78 a night. Hello. Sign me up. What I didn’t realize before I stayed, there’s, there’s no lobby. It is a room. They have, it’s these old, I don’t know if they were barracks or just active duty rooms. They, these very long, Melissa Arlena: luxurious place that I would want to go. Alison: it’s not, but it’s on the water in Hawaii with a great view. Right? And it’s cheap. Melissa Arlena: Uh. Alison: Um, and so they, they reinvent, renovated these big buildings to be these [00:07:00] individual rooms. But the bathroom is communal, like a camp style. So it’s a fully functioning linen. You have a sink, but you don’t have, you don’t have a toilet or a shower in your room. And I was fine with that. Like the price was right. I was newly to Hawaii. I had a lot to do, and I wasn’t making the money I was yet, right? Like the money had not come in. So I was willing to do all that, except I didn’t have a lobby. So I was like. What am I thinking? What am I gonna do? So I sat outside at a really nice picnic table. I didn’t have access to power, which was fine, but it was shaded. I had a really nice view. Um, and then another thing I realized I was really far away on the back end of the base from any sort of food. Like I had packed some snacks. I had packed a bottle of wine, but I had nowhere to get dinner. Then I couldn’t DoorDash anything. I’m kind of cheap for that anyway. I wouldn’t even know how, if I tried. Um, and so it took me 30 minutes to go get food and 30 minutes to come back. And it was a waste of my time, right? Like I already had was just doing a one [00:08:00] night, 24 hour, 36 hour thing. And then one of those hours, one of those valuable working hours was spent. Going and fetching. Um, and so keep that in mind. You need a lobby, you want to be close to things. Um, so my second workation here in Hawaii, this is the one where I left on Sunday and I picked my kids back up on Monday, um, was in the middle of Waikiki. Um, it did have a lobby, albeit an open air lobby. Um, and to find something that was in my price range in the middle of Waikiki, where I felt safe, alone, solo at night and in the morning. It was tricky to find something in my price range. Um, and so it was a much older style hotel, um, but it was really close to that rigor. I was half a block away from the water, um, in a Starbucks and some restaurants. So I had the gopher thing down and again, something I didn’t think about parking. There was no onsite parking, so to. Yeah, so I had to go park my car to check in. ’cause there [00:09:00] there wasn’t even a loading zone. This place was so like old school, like it was old. So, um, it was, it was nice. I had, it had a lobby, it was open air. I was really close to the outrigger, so I was able to walk. When I checked out, I actually just walked down to the outrigger and stayed there. Um, but loading and unloading all my stuff, like my couple bags, my work bag, and then my food bag. Melissa Arlena: Mm-hmm. Alison: way more complicated by not being able to park close or having a loading zone. So, you know, details, details that are all gonna be location specific. So you need a lobby, you need parking, and you wanna be comfortable and close and safe to all the things that you’re gonna need for these 24, 36, 48 hours. Melissa Arlena: Yeah, when we were just in Virginia Beach for a trip, uh, a couple weeks ago, it was just me and David. We popped up there. The hotel we stayed at, as we were walking around later that night, I was like, Ooh, this is a good lobby for a work retreat. Like it was, it Alison: Do it. Melissa Arlena: It had tables, chairs, like it was the whole set. I was like, wifi. The restaurant was right there. The beach was right there. I was like, I’m keeping this hotel in mind. Alison: Yeah. [00:10:00] Go back in. The off season will be so cheap. Melissa Arlena: Yeah. Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: the other thing to think about too, of like, okay, the first way I did what I considered like a workation, like Allison said, we had gone to a conference, um, and I, we had to check out the hotel, I think at like 10, but Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: leave till like seven o’clock that night. It just was how it was. So I ended up just hanging out in the lobby of the Gaylord. Um, the fire was crackling. It was lovely. I Alison: Mm-hmm. Yep. Melissa Arlena: and get them done. So that can be another thing to think about is it may not necessarily be where you can get away for an entire weekend, but like, let’s say you’re, you’re already traveling, can you add on a little bit of time that Alison: great. Melissa Arlena: that? Um, I think[00:11:00] Alison: Is there a family event you can skip? Melissa Arlena: Right. Well, that’s, yeah, that’s the other thing is Sarah family event, you can send them off to, and then you, you do your own thing. So there are different ways to do it. And I, I like how Allison points out too, like she might go for one night, you know, she’s not trying to get away from everybody for three or four days, which can wreck things. Um, Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: I just did the, um, the work retreat for TMA, um, that was in the summertime, so my kids were. Outta school. My husband was working from home at that time, so it was really easy. But Alison: Yeah, Melissa Arlena: to do that during the school year, like I’m looking at that now going, Ooh, I would have to do a Alison: yeah. Melissa Arlena: it would have to be shorter. ’cause I just, I’m the one who takes my daughter at this point. My husband and the boys commute. Alison: Mm-hmm. Melissa Arlena: it would be a real pain in the butt trying to organize her getting to Alison: Yeah. Melissa Arlena: them getting to where they need to go. So, Alison: Yeah, absolutely. So, to wrap up some of the things you need to consider, you know, the time, what are you gonna do? Uh, the list of things you website overhauls, a blog backlog, massive editing from big events, Santas or fall minis, like that would be a [00:12:00] great time to get all that stuff squared away. Um, social media and content planning. We have whole episodes on Marketing Mondays and planning for the whole year. It’s a good time to do some of that plan for the whole year and start doing it. On a workation, um, brand new email sequences like your flows, your nurture sequence, your post-sale sequence, um, any client education you have been thinking, oh, this would be nice to do. Yeah, plan it out. Go do it. Go get, go, do it. Um, and any sort of new Yeah, of course. New offers, freebies, lead magnets, Melissa Arlena: Well, if Alison: all these things. Melissa Arlena: purchased a course Alison: Oh, do the course. Yeah. Melissa Arlena: That. That’s one that just came to me. ’cause I’m like, how many of us have purchased a course and then we slowly work our way through it and then maybe don’t even finish it. Alison: Get 25% and you’re like, Melissa Arlena: and you just like, there you go. I’m gonna spend Alison: you did it Melissa Arlena: gonna get through this entire thing. I’ll tell you, whoever had the course would be like, you’re amazing. Alison: right? Melissa Arlena: a great way to do it. Alison: Yes. Finish. Okay, finish adding that to my list. Um, so those are the [00:13:00] things. If you have never done a workation, we highly recommend it. If you got questions about it, we are here for it. Reach out to us on Instagram. Um, and then. Tag us in your photos of your workation. If you go like tag us, um, keep it moving pod. Yeah, for sure. And of course if you’re interested in coming to Honolulu for your workation, I might be willing to join you. So open invitation if you wanna come out. Um, I’ve been trying to get Melissa and some other people out here for, what, two years now? Two years I’ve been here and nobody’s come out. So we’ll see what happens. Um, so thanks for listening guys. Have a good one. Melissa Arlena: Bye bye.