Have you planned a vacation for yourself for this year? Sometimes, home-based professionals go years without taking a vacation because they feel that they can not afford to take the time or spend the money to do so. As much as you may think that you are getting ahead by opting out of taking one or more vacations each year, you may not be doing yourself any favors. There are a few reasons that vacations are actually important to the success of all professionals, including those of us that work from home. What’s more, you do not need to spend a lot of money or go far, far away to reap the benefits of a vacation. Staycations and simple, low-key vacations can be just as effective as expensive cruises or international adventures.
Vacations can help prevent burnout. When you work day in and day out with no real break in the action it is easy to get tired of your work. Fatigue and stress can take the joy out of doing any job, even work that you may have enjoyed doing at one time. When your daily work brings no joy, you tend to just plod along and do only what you need to do to get by. Taking a vacation every so often gives your mind a break from the day to day tasks of your work and enables you to return to work refreshed and able to continue enjoying what you do.
Vacations can also help you to work through difficulties that you may be having with your work. Sometimes it is hard to find solutions to problems that you come across in your work when you do not have much time to stop and think about them. When you take a vacation, you may wind up spontaneously finding an answer to a question or a solution to a problem without even consciously thinking about it. When your mind is given a break from your usual day to day work, you are free to think creatively about whatever you like. That freedom is what often allows spontaneous solutions and ‘aha” moments to happen.
If you are having difficulty with something family-related, vacations can help with that too. Often, couples and families do not take time out of their daily routines to voice concerns or have discussions about things that they really should talk about. Not talking about things that need to be talked about can cause tension among family members. Also, some problems that families have result from a feeling of being disconnected from each other. Vacations let families reconnect with each other and take some time to just play. You may not think that having serious discussions when you should be relaxing is a good idea, but if people approach a serious topic when they are relaxed instead of when they are feeling rushed or frazzled, the conversation is likely to be more positive and more productive.
When are you taking your next vacation?