June has been a highly unusual month for me, because I’ve been on vacation for the whole thing til now. I haven’t taken such a long vacation in many years, but after this one I’m thinking we should do it more often!

I’ll talk later about some of the financial lessons I learned while on vacation, but for now I want to talk about something more important: gaining clarity of purpose.

Clarity of purpose is just what it sounds like: being clear on what holds meaning for you — and what doesn’t.

Sometimes it takes a break in the routine to figure that out.

Here’s what I didn’t do during my time off: no twitter, no surfing the Internet, no reading blogs, almost no writing of blog posts (I’d written a bunch ahead of time), no staring obsessively at the calendar to figure out how I could get things done, no worrying about how my app was doing, no paying bills, no work for my employer, no taking care of the pets, plants, and house, etc.

With a limited and sometimes erratic Internet connection, about all I could do was check email once a day (at most) and respond to comments.

And you know what? The world didn’t end. In fact, it got a whole lot better.

I spent my time with my family looking at beautiful things and places.

The thing I love to do best came to the forefront: create.

And now, more than ever, I understand how critical it is to make the important things urgent. Not only urgent, but first, foremost, and daily.

I hope you will allow yourself the joy of doing the same.