Photo by Dessidre Fleming on Unsplash

No one expects you to do anything on vacation besides relax. But do you expect that from yourself?

Or do you expect yourself to get a few tasks knocked out while enjoying your time away?

For the past three days, I’ve stayed at the Grand Oasis Resort in Cancun, Mexico with my girlfriend.

Due to intense discipline, I’ve managed to produce one new piece of content each day, and tend to my marketing responsibilities, all while enjoying myself.

Here are three tips you can use on your next vacation to maintain your productivity levels.

1. Don’t Set a Schedule.

If you set a schedule for yourself, you’re going to take away the enjoyment from the whole experience.

A vacation is supposed to be about relaxation or adventure. Not hitting deadlines, worrying, or stressing.

Each day, I’ve had different spurts of peak flow state productivity. When things slow down and you’re in your room with extra downtime, why not get a little extra work done?

Setting a schedule restricts you from an eased state of mind and puts you into hyper-intense focus mode. 30 minutes to 1 hour is plenty of time to accomplish any tasks you might need to take care of.

2. Get Enough Rest.

You’re on vacation so you should be feeling energized and well-rested right? Not always.

Some people leave their regular lives to go balls to the walls on their vacations. Others like my girlfriend and I, prefer to get a good night’s rest and have an early start each day.

We tend to take a mid-day nap to recharge, but besides that, we’re in bed no later than 2 am.

Thanks to my girlfriend Sam’s early internal clock, we get up at around 7 am every day, make it to breakfast, and start doing activities around 8:30 am.

Your productivity can’t thrive if you’re tired, crabby, or hungover. Have tons of fun, but remember to take good care of your body. 5–7 hours is a sufficient amount of rest.

3. Keep Your Tasks/Work Simple.

I’m not going to lie to you and say that I wrote an entire book while at a resort in Cancun. It’s just not realistic. Otherwise, I would have planned a getaway dedicated only to doing work.

But since this was more about fun and relaxation, I kept my daily goals simple — create 5 pieces of social media marketing, write one blog post, and capture moments for Instagram reels.

It’s not too overwhelming. It is sustainable and very achievable. And I love doing it.

Decide what you want to accomplish each day prior to your trip. Without a plan, you’ll feel unnecessarily guilty for not doing anything “productive”.

Final Thought

You define what “productive” means to you. It doesn’t have to be about creating content. It could be checking in on your friends and family members with the extra time you have.

Thanks to being productive on vacation, I’m feeling twice as amazing. I’m spending an exciting vacation with the love of my life while working towards my goals.

Productivity can be fun! Try to avoid letting it take the fun out of your vacation. And if you don’t care to be productive in your travels, that’s totally fine too!

What do you think? Leave a comment with your thoughts. And if you think more people should read this article, share it on social media.