Join 17,000+ creatives receiving insider insights about brand and marketing design – featuring landing page and rebrand breakdowns, useful career content, and a behind-the-scenes look at running a Brand Studio team in tech.
How would you spend a month off work?
Hi Reader,
On Friday evening I signed out of my work Slack and turned the out of office on my email to begin my 4 week sabbatical. 🎉
This is a benefit that ConvertKit gives to people who have been there for five years (on top of your regular vacation allowance for that year) and I’m grateful for it.
While I may be taking a break from work over the next month, I’ll still be here in your inbox with the Dispatch each Monday sharing more writing on marketing design and perhaps even some design explorations for personal projects.
How I'm spending my month-long sabbatical
I’m curious, what would YOU do with your time if you had a fully-paid month off work?
Given the pandemic situation (and a chronically ill cat who needs daily medication) I’m not spending this month travelling the world as I’d first envisioned when this benefit was announced. Instead I’m spending it all in my home-city of Valencia, and here’s what I’m planning for the next 4 weeks.
One full week of solid rest and relaxation.
I’m kicking off my sabbatical with a full week of rest. No work, no side projects. Just reading books, cycling to the beach, playing video games, meals with friends and taking siestas. Switching off is difficult for me (especially cos the moment I have margin is when ideas start flowing that I’ll want to act on!), but after a highly stressful few years of life and work I know I need to allow myself to just get a little bored quite honestly.
Staycations
Luckily I live in a city that others love to visit on their vacation! So staying home isn’t so bad. I am craving a change of environment though, so I’ve booked in a couple of nights in hotels in the city during my month off.
Book writing
Once my self-mandated full week of rest is over I’m looking forward to being able to spend more time writing my book. As you may know, it’s been a slow process so far but it’s one I’m still very much committed to and I’m excited to have the time and space to make meaningful progress on it.
Whatever the heck I feel like!
What I’m most excited about for this month off though is margin. I’m so excited to wake up every day and do whatever I feel drawn to whether it’s reading, writing, designing (I’m itching to tackle the design & build of my personal site… it’s been a while!), creating content, streaming video games or nothing in particular. I feel my most creative when I can follow whims, and with no meetings or work responsibilities for the next month I’ll be free to do just that. What a privilege!
I hope you’ll enjoy following along with this sabbatical journey through this newsletter and my YouTube channel.
Dispatch sponsor
All-in-one business banking for creatives
No one starts a creative business because they love paperwork, right? That’s why Found was created: to make self-employment easier. With no-fee business banking and smart, simple tools, Found makes banking, bookkeeping, taxes, and invoicing easier than ever.
The Found debit Mastercard seamlessly tracks and categorizes your expenses, helping you save on taxes. You can run reports, send invoices, save receipts, and pay taxes—all from the app, and all for free. And Found’s automatic tax withholding means you’ll never be caught unprepared at tax time.
No monthly fees, no minimums—just smart banking that saves time. If you're based in the US and self-employed (looking at you freelancers, designers, and content creators like me!), you should check it out. Create an account in minutes and find out why thousands of people rely on Found.
| Check out Found |
Read: Johnnie Gómez for Lovers Magazine
I first met Johnnie when he was one of the kind folks who volunteered to be interviewed for season 1 of my podcast, Inside Marketing Design. He’s incredibly talented and kind hearted and I really enjoyed reading this recent profile on Lovers Magazine.
I’ll end with this meme that crossed my timeline exactly when I needed it to yesterday as I was rushing to wrap up the last few things and started worrying about leaving my work and my team for a month.
June 24th 2022
|
I know I did the best I could to prepare my team for this time off, and that it’s going to fly by. So now I best get on with enjoying it!
Have a good week,
How would you rate this issue?
Marketing Design Dispatch
by Charli Marie
Join 17,000+ creatives receiving insider insights about brand and marketing design – featuring landing page and rebrand breakdowns, useful career content, and a behind-the-scenes look at running a Brand Studio team in tech.