Relaxing and recharging: taking time off

By Kari Wilhelm

December 17, 2023

We know we’re supposed to take time off from work to relax, recharge, and basically do all the things we want to do but can’t do because we’re busy working. But how do we actually do that? We sometimes question if we should take off time at all. Will we miss out on something if we decide to take it? And what’s the right amount of time? What’s the best way to use it?

While I was taking some time off recently, I wanted to dig a bit more into the topic for myself. I realized I do things now that make it easier for me to detach from work than I used to. I took some time to do a bit of research and put some thought into why this is the case. I am sharing my thoughts and learnings here in case this helps anyone find more relaxation on a regular basis! I’m always working on getting better at this as well. I have noticed that these days I can detach much quicker than I used to; I find it is due to the type of activities, the mindset going into it, and the consistency of practice in it.

Understanding Relaxing and Recharging

Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably, they however mean different things. Depending on the situation and day, you might need one more than the other.

Relaxing: reducing tension or anxiety

Recharging: returning to a normal state of mind or strength after a period of physical or mental exertion

As an exercise, try brain dumping everything you do when you’re not working and see which category each one falls into. As a second step consider what you’d like to do in these categories that you aren’t currently doing.

Common activities you might see under relaxing are things like “watching TV”, “reading a novel”, or a repetitive meditative task, like hand-making pasta. Even some extra sleep can go in this one. You are trying to let go of tension, to relax your mind from the day perhaps, and not exerting a lot of energy on doing something.

In comparison, an activity that will be recharging is more something that engages your mind and keeps you detached from work. This can include learning new skills such as a musical instrument, a language, diving into topics that require a lot of thought that you want to learn about, as well as physical training and exercise. These activities can feel relaxing, the key difference to the relaxing category is that these ones can leave you feeling a bit more energized and activated with positive energy. For example, I’ve been learning electric guitar for recharging, hence the guitar 🎸 photo!

The amount of time you take will probably guide how you spend the time. What you choose to do in 15 or 30 minutes before work might be different than what you pick for two weeks off from work.

Embracing the Ebb and Flow of Productivity

“But I feel guilty taking time off, I should be more productive”

No one can be productive 100% of the time, creativity and productivity are not a constant output. They come in waves and phases. Just like being awake 100% of the time isn’t physically possible, we need to alternate between being awake and sleeping - we also need to rest our minds to recharge. Consider a performance athlete specializing in sprinting; they can’t sprint every day all day long. It’s a balance of different training methods, and enough rest and recovery along the way. Your mind needs rest in the same way. Remind yourself that taking the time off to rest your mind is a necessary part of being able to be creative and have a burst of productivity.

3 Tips for Detaching from Work

Before we move on to how to find time, here’s a few tips to set yourself up well to get the most out of it.

Keep work notifications silenced Depending on the amount of time, this might be turning off notifications, putting your devices away, or logging out of or uninstalling apps on your phone for longer periods. If you’re open to interruptions from work, you’re probably not fully detached from it.
Brain dump your work thoughts. If your mind is swirling with work thoughts and problem solving and your to-dos, try to dump those before you stop work for the day/hour/etc. It takes mental energy to hold this in your head, and it’s tempting to keep thinking about them when you are trying not to. This is useful also if you find you are in the middle of time off, and your brain just activated with a bunch of ideas - it’s often faster to write them out and let them go instead of pushing them away.
Know how you want to spend your time off. It can sometimes feel stressful if you decide to take time off, but are stuck on what to do to make the most of it. If you find this happens, it’s a good time to go ahead and try to make a list of things you’d like to do so that you’re ready to go once you’ve reserved some time for yourself. Also, you can use your time off to discover what you’d like to do as well! What not to do here is to default to work because you can’t think of anything else to do.

Finding Time to Relax and Recharge

Let’s do some rough math on this one to get some perspective on where our opportunities are to have time off.

There are 365 days a year
Let’s say a good 20 vacation/PTO days for the sake of discussion (you may have more or less)
…with 104 weekend days,
leaves us with about 241 work days.

That yields about 12 times more workdays a year than vacation days, and a bit more than 5 times the amount of weekend days than vacation days.

If we only concentrate on vacation days to relax and recharge, we’re passing up on getting that the rest of the time. Including weekend and work days in this approach gives us a way to be consistent practicing detaching from work. Practice makes us better at it in the long run. Getting good at using smaller amounts of time more often can add up to feeling more relaxed and recharged on a regular basis. Conversely, if we only try to detach for actual vacation days, we probably won’t get very good at it.

Using your Vacation Days

There are many cultural and legal differences across paid time off depending on where you are working. In Germany, for example, most full time employees have about 30 days of vacation on top of any legally recognized holidays, and sick days are separate. There’s a higher sense of abundance of time off. In the US, the rules are company dependent and “time off” often includes sick days, with generally fewer recognized legal holidays. This can lead to a feeling of scarcity. There are also companies who give “unlimited” vacation days, where you take time off when you want and the amount is up to you. In practice this could be more or less days and some studies show people in this bucket tend to take less overall days off.

Don’t leave your vacation days on the table! If you have paid vacation days (e.g. PTO), this is part of your compensation. Not taking it is like giving your employer back money. Sometimes you might be worrying about losing an opportunity, or missing out on something. I used to worry more about what would happen when I am out, and then I finally experienced missing out on something. Was it bad? No. I have even taken off just a long weekend and a major reorg in my company was announced on the Monday that I missed. Did it matter? No, nothing was impacted long-term. Losing career opportunities is often another concern, maybe you’re worried a task or project will be assigned to someone else while you’re out that you really want. To limit this, try having conversations with your manager ahead of time on making sure you’re set up well for your career opportunities. This may be more or less challenging depending on your work culture and situation. Know that these vacation days are yours to take and it should be possible to do so.

Keeping Weekends for Time-Off

Most office jobs that fall into the 5 days a week bucket mean the two weekend days are not intended as work days. From time to time we may give this up to “get more done”, but you’re also giving up your time off doing this and it can add up and result in a drop in productivity, which is probably the opposite of what you were going for. Keep weekend work as an exception if you can. Note that practicalities and legalities of this are dependent on your job and work contract. The point is that if you have this time, it can really be a huge booster in relaxing and recharging for the upcoming week, so think twice before choosing to work instead.

Building in Time-Off on Work Days

I am including the hours before and after work on a work day, and any time you can reserve in-between. This time gives us an opportunity to have consistent time for relaxing and recharging during the week. Admittedly, finding this can take some work, as well as get the hang of keeping it. Developing strong habits and boundaries is really key here, so you can detach from work in these moments. This can be the time you take before or after work for your hobbies, to read a book, go for a walk, exercise, etc. If this time is often dedicated to chores, errands, or getting an extra thing done for work that day - what can you carve out to dedicate to yourself? Taking time to myself in the early morning has made a huge difference for me personally.