THE VALUE OF TAKING TIME OUT
How many of us have come back from holidays wishing that we could take more time out? Or we have a big project we want to tackle but can’t seem to get around to it with appropriate focus (and energy) on weekends.
Momentum is gaining for the concept of taking mini-retirements throughout your career rather than saving long periods of time off until you are in your 70’s and possibly no longer able to enjoy the opportunity as you could in your 30’s and 40’s. Whilst some folks have unfortunately been forced into unexpected long breaks due to organisational restructuring; others are actively building planned breaks into their career either as a consultant / contractor / small business owner or by agreement with their employer.
Stefan Sagmeister in his famous TED talk ‘The Power of Time Off’ recommends the benefits of a year-long break every 7 years and believes it has a profound effect on creativity, productivity, purpose and happiness. In essence, he suggests taking 5 of your retirement years and interspersing them throughout your career.
Alternatively, there is merit to structuring your career with short but more regular mini-breaks, or mini-retirements as Tim Ferris advocates as part of designing the lifestyle you want, throughout your working life. From an organisational perspective, experience shows that the person on a long-term sabbatical rarely returns or the reintegratation isn’t successful, so there can be benefit to both parties to allow shorter, more frequent sabbaticals to refresh, recharge and thrive.
So what might you do on a sabbatical and how can you maximise the opportunity?
The choice is yours and limited only by your imagination! People have used sabbaticals to build new skills, travel, renovate a house, care for a family member, volunteer overseas, learn to dance, write a book, create art or study.
Some suggestions for making the most of the opportunity:
- Reframe your thinking and actively make the choice to take the sabbaticals
What prevents people taking sabbaticals? Often it is a fear of lack of security ie. job, financial or career; along with worrying about what will other people think; telling yourself you are ‘too busy’ or fear of missing out on career opportunities.
Perhaps you need to rethink what ‘being successful’ means to you – is it really having a 6 bedroom house in the most expensive suburb that you never actually enjoy because you are working 6 x 14 hour days a week for 20 years? You need to also ensure you don’t fall into the trap of feeling guilty and you get comfortable that the idea of ‘productivity’ looking different when you are on sabbatical.
You can reframe this thought and emotional process by getting excited about what you could gain (rather than what it might ‘cost’) – for yourself, your family and your work. That is, adding value to your life rather than cutting short-term costs for future gain – much as a functional leader should advise when partnering with the business. So treat yourself as you would your business!
- Treat it like an experiment
You may not yet know what your passions are or even how to find out what they are. Why not just take the plunge and give it a go? Sometimes the only way to know if volunteering in India is even your thing is to try it. If it’s not for you, try something else for your next sabbatical.
- Have a plan (but be flexible)
You should make sure you have a plan or framework for using this time to full benefit. Otherwise you can drift along without full commitment to maximise your time out, which is unlikely to lead to a sense of purpose, satisfaction and ultimately benefit to you personally and professionally.
Equally, there is no need for rigid targets to be met every day. Allow enough time to relax so the unexpected surprises that can occur when you aren’t in the narrow mental focus of working are allowed to happen – the ‘Big Magic’ that Elizabeth Gilbert refers to.
- Reduce the financial stress so you can relax
Of course, you need to set yourself up financially so the sabbaticals are not creating additional stress in your life. You need to have the discipline of being a diligent saver and also manage your own expectations of what ‘success’ looks like. Consider health, knowledge, family, enjoyment of life and experiences over financial commitments that are beyond a required level – you can still be financially secure but be more balanced in your approach.
If travel is your sabbatical plan, perhaps you could sublet your home for the 2 months you are off to earn some income, or do a house swap to save on accommodation costs. Or use your skills to earn money – whilst you learn how to surf in Tahiti, you could also be teaching the locals English language skills.
So what does this mean for employers?
From an organisational perspective, there can be benefits for providing these arrangements especially for high performing or high potential employees who you wish to retain. Not to mention, they come back refreshed, more engaged and may have new skills or thinking to apply to their work and teams. It can also be a nice talent development opportunity to allow other team members to step up to cover the absence and develop their own skills and internal networks.
Depending on the length of time, you may need to hire a contractor to backfill the person’s role, however, the overall cost to the organisation isn’t usually significant and is a relatively small price to pay compared to replacing high performing talent altogether.
Sabbaticals can also be a great way to allow employees to find work/life balance if traditional flexible working arrangements such as job share or part-time work aren’t suitable or desirable for them. Some people prefer to work hard for 10 months and take 2 months off every year. For senior consultants, this can often be the reason for making the switch from being an employee ie. to have more control over their working arrangements and to have this flexibility.
By having shorter sabbaticals, there are usually less issues for both the organisation and employee in terms of returning to the workforce as there is less likely to have been major changes in a two month timeframe rather than 12 months, making reintegration easier.
In Australia, we are luckier than most countries who don’t offer long service leave. However, given people often don’t stay in roles long enough to qualify for long service leave any more, perhaps you can start to put a financial and career plan in place to give yourself a sabbatical on a regular basis.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this: what would you spend 8 weeks doing if you planned to take a sabbatical? What is (really and truly) stopping you planning for one now?
