How To Take Time Off
This time of year, I thought it might be appropriate to address how to take time off. Coming from a guy who tends to get obsessive, this might mean more than your wife nagging you to take more time off. When I wrote the first SolidWorks 2007 Bible, I worked 14 hours a day for 6 days a week for several months. It was insane. Working like that certainly can have its rewards, but it also has its costs. I didn’t eat right, I only slept when I collapsed. I did try to make it out fishing once a week, and that’s essentially what helped me keep everything together. I’m a big believer that you don’t accomplish much of value without some sort of sacrifice, but you’ve also got to have some sort of balance.
Thanksgiving is a great time of year, because it gives you the opportunity to reflect and to enjoy. Take the time to be with family, which is really the reason you do everything you do.
Taking time off is really about resetting your head. It’s about relaxing and catching up with things that need attention that you may have ignored more than you should. The only way for really driven people to take time off is to make sure that your projects are all at a point where you can walk away for a few days. That’s really the trick, isn’t it? It’s easier to walk away when you work in an office where everyone else is also just walking away for a time. When you work for yourself, it’s a different issue. No one is going to take care of you if you don’t. It is so tempting to use holidays to get “caught up” on your work, but really, you need to recharge more than you need to catch up. Working at high efficiency is a better way to get stuff done than just plodding through more hours. There’s nothing like a fresh, happy, and creative mind for doing work right and doing it quickly.
The one trap you need to avoid is allowing holidays to be stressful. You are trying to use this time to relax, recharge, engage in life, not to argue your uncle into submission on some political point. Driving 300 miles through big city traffic is not going to do your state of mind any good (although maybe driving through some beautiful countryside at a relaxed but purposeful pace would…) Cleaning your house can be cathartic, it relieves tension or worry about the place being a wreck, and it’s always nice to have a clean place, as long as it’s not frantic and shoving stuff in closets. Cooking can also be relaxing, and a fun way to be with family.
Thanksgiving for me is a great time to unwind, without the unmanageable expectations that can sometimes come with Christmas.
So my advice to you this Thanksgiving is to sit back, relax, find joy in being with your family, and use the time to recharge. The business challenges will still be there for you to conquer next week, but you’ll feel so much better if you learn to relax, enjoy, and be thankful with other people.
My grandparents on both sides were self employed, both my parents were self employed. My Wife and are self employed, I now have an hourly based 40 hours a week job currently. I have 2 other jobs I own, one contract based and the other keeping the books for my Wife’s company. I dig being self employed.
Good word. I’m likely in a minority that finds it easy to take time off. Or put another way, I have a harder time being focused and disciplined. But you learn quickly when you’re on your own and have a dozen bosses instead of one. The mental rest is so important, especially with an office at home.