A one day break from, well, anything can easily become a two day break, which leads to the few days break, which leads to the “why not make it an even week” break, which quickly and nearly effortlessly can become an indefinite hiatus.
It’s true of fitness, habits, and yes, business.
One of the challenges to running your own business is that the hours are defined by you. There’s no boss looking over your shoulder, no card to punch at the start and end of the day, just you. Sure, your workload might dictate your time, but that’s a workload that was chosen by you as well, and when you get to, oh, I don’t know, Christmas/Hanukkah/Festivus/etc where in most cases the workload eases down while the rest of the world takes a break, it’s easy to take a few days off and then watch that time expand slowly.
In my case this year I took the 24th to the 27th off (yes, I’m aware that covered a weekend and two statutory holidays) with today, the 28th, being a slow “ease back in” day where I let my mind and body purge some of the excesses from the past few days. But it very nearly became a full week, because I made the critical mistake of not actually scheduling a return date.
There are some who say that year end is the perfect time to double down and work straight through to gain an edge over your (presumably) slacker competitors. I think there’s greater value in planned rest and recovery, but beware if it’s not strictly scheduled or you might find the time off was a lot longer than you thought it’d be.
Photo by Dan4th Nicholas
Leave a Reply