The 5 AM Flight (and other questionable decisions)
So, here's the dilemma. Travel is an ever present part of my job, and I love it. I'm actually hard-pressed to think of a work trip within the last few years that I haven't been excited about for one reason or another. I'm either engaging directly with veterans, meeting with members of our team or our partners, or fundraising (a thinly veiled excuse for me to go on and on about how awesome WSP is).
But:
I have a family. And every hour I'm away is an hour where I'm not only away from them, but also implicitly or explicitly asking my wife to solo parent while I'm away. So while I genuinely love to travel, I'm also very mindful of the consequences of being gone.
Which leads me to the 5 AM flight. Present Ryan loves this flight when he’s booking it. Sure, future Ryan will have to wake up obnoxiously early and will likely have to rely on coffee or some slick napping techniques to make it through the day effectively, but future Ryan will be up for it. That guy can do anything!
The thing about the 5 AM flight is that it allows me to maximize time at home. I don't have to leave late afternoon or in the evening the day before, which means another night at home where I can help get the rambunctious boys to bed and sleep next to my wife.
On paper, it makes sense. But as it turns out, human beings aren't made of paper.
Those crack of dawn flights have a way of triggering a restless night of sleep beforehand. Did I set the alarm? Did I set the second alarm? What if I sleep through both? The whole trip will be ruined – damn you past Ryan for your alarm snafus!
And even if I managed to get a solid few hours of sleep the night before the flight, I don't really have any flexibility in the trip because my schedule is often packed from the moment I arrive until the moment I head back home. So it's a mix of adrenaline and caffeine to get me through the day, combined with a healthy dose of frustration at the decisions made by past Ryan.
When I say yes to something like a 5 AM flight, what am I giving up?
I had breakfast the other day with a nonprofit leader who shared about her arduous decision to cancel a trip last minute to help preserve her own well-being. The trip she had to cancel wasn't a small thing. She had committed to it long in advance and there was no question about the personal and professional value of going. Canceling was not a decision she made lightly, but she knew that if she did go, she wouldn't be “all there.” And worse, if she pushed through despite all the warning signs, it may have taken a severe toll on her health.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a useful framing tool. One of the insights gleaned from working through this matrix is that tasks that are important but not urgent (think things like eating healthily or exercising) can become urgent without warning (think medical emergency caused by not eating healthily and exercising). If we neglect the important things like taking care of ourselves simply because those things don't seem urgent, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
So every time that I book a 5 AM flight, I need to take some time to think about what I'm giving up to make that happen. Sometimes, it might be worth it. The time I can gain with family at home is in many cases an acceptable trade-off for the sleep I will lose. But if I play that game too often, I'm in for a bad time.
And anytime I find myself counting on future Ryan to fix present Ryan’s problems, I need to let past Ryan share some words of wisdom about how that turned out last time we tried it.