When your computer glitches or won’t open something, what’s the first thing you do? (Okay, the second thing, after cussing it out.)
You reboot, right?
Humans need rebooting sometimes too! I’m as guilty as anyone of failing to take vacation time, but I’m learning my lessons. When I worked for a university, I would personally be advised that I needed to use some of my PTO or donate it to the leave bank. This was actually a nice reminder whenever I got it, and I would often then plan some travel to use up some of my accrued time.
But people who get “unlimited PTO” (is there a more meaningless phrase?) or those of us who are contractors, temp employees, or entrepreneurs often have a much harder time with this because nobody is looking over our shoulder, telling us to step away from the job, already.
This doesn’t make your down time less important, though! You still need to take time away from the grind, ideally including some time that doesn’t come with obligations or plans.
So, then, what can you do? The first step to finding out what works for you is to start somewhere. I can tell you what works for me: Every quarter, I schedule at least one three-day weekend that doesn’t involve volunteering, tasks, or big plans. Sometimes I’ll use the time to tackle a project I find fun, but the important thing is that I don’t feel obligated—it’s not something that needs to get done, but something I choose to do. I also plan longer breaks. When I worked at the university, we got the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day off, and since not very much is happening then anyway, I’ve continued that tradition. I also usually take a day or two off for my birthday. These, for me, are the easiest ways to plan my break times. Your system may look entirely different—maybe you plan around a child’s school vacation or times of year you know are slow. The point is that the specifics of the system you use don’t really matter. What does matter is that you find a plan that works for you, and that you stick with it.
Periodically restarting your system will keep you from experiencing a hard drive crash, and we definitely don’t want your hard drive to crash!
