Take Your Vacations
Highly Effective Work Habits: Take Your Vacations
Most jobs will either give you about 2 weeks of vacation when you first start or you earn hours as you go. And usually those benefits will increase the longer you stay with a company. If you’ve got vacation time, take it! Working hard is all well and good, but you need to take a break every now and then.
I admit, I often check my emails on vacation just to keep up to date so I don’t have quite as much catching up to do when I get back. However, this has drawbacks. A vacation is supposed to be work-free. If you are checking emails, participating in conference calls, or communicating in other ways with people in the office, you are not really on vacation are you? If you’ve got a lot going on in the office, this can actually add some level of stress to your vacation.
The whole point of a vacation is to stop working and recharge your batteries. It allows you to focus on some family and fun. That way, you are much more refreshed when you return to work. If you live in the USA, you certainly need to take this time off. We work more hours than most other countries in the world. We also get less time off for vacations, maternity leave, etc than most countries. Personally, I think this needs to change, but for now this is the reality we live in in the States.
You don’t even have to go anywhere (although I would recommend it). You could just take a “stay-cation” and bum around the house doing fun local activities with the family. Ideally, if you can swing it, don’t save it all up and use it all in one shot. Spread it out throughout the year so you have several vacations to look forward to. Or you can create a bunch of 4 day work weeks. Whatever your choice, as long as you are not doing work, that is the whole point.
So, take your vacations. You are overworked! 
