This week is a sabbatical week for me. For the last two years, I’ve taken every seventh week off from work to rest and prepare for the next six week cycle. Today, I’m sharing a few lessons I’ve picked up over the last two years and fourteen sabbaticals.
1. Schedule the time to rest. As in, literally, put it on your calendar.
We often hear about the idea of taking time off and taking time “for yourself” without really exploring what that means. Being a knowledge worker in the age of the Internet – which is most of us – means that your work is available 24/7. The only way you will get away from work and obligation is by developing clear boundaries for work. Whether it’s in the form of email, responding to social media messages, writing drafts, or some other form of communication, the work never sleeps. It’s entirely too easy to decide to open the laptop back up at 8pm and to “just fix one thing” only to fall down the rabbit hole of administrative upkeep or research for the next several hours. Instead, we should set clear time cutoffs for ending our day. I’ve instituted a no-work after 7pm rule, which means that even if I want to do some research or hop back online to get a jump on the next day, I don’t. I can write notes in my notebook, but the evenings are for resting and spending time with family.
Taking time off is as simple as blocking the time on your calendar and sticking to it. If it doesn’t get scheduled, it won’t happen.
2. Keeping your schedule both open and on routine as possible.
Stick to your normal routine over sabbatical. This may sound counter-intuitive, but keeping the same morning and evening routine will allow you to rest more. Your mind is already used to your morning routine, whatever that is. Those habits are formed and saving your mind the time and energy of having to consciously decide what to do each minute. Embrace this by keeping your morning and bedtime routines the same over the sabbatical week.
This has brought a welcome change to my productivity. I keep my usual morning routine of journaling, reading, and writing, then use he normal work hours to tackle the projects or reading or whatever I’ve decided to do that day. I take my normal break for lunch and get back to the project for the day.
The temptation on sabbatical is to say, “Well, I don’t have to do anything tomorrow so I can stay up late watching three or ten episodes of Friends or scrolling through the entire internet.” In practice, the sabbatical is more restful and fulfilling when I get up on time and spend the day actively pursuing my interests. Then, when evening comes, sure, I’ll watch a television show or read a few more chapters or catch up on the topic du jour. The bulk of my day is free, but I still have the routine to keep me aware of what time it is.
I make it a point to continue my workouts over sabbatical, as well. Physical activity is part of a healthy lifestyle, like sleep and eating well; it’s not something that goes out the door when you have time away from work. With the flexibility of the sabbatical week, I do like to change up the time I work out and go for a morning run or workout in the middle of the afternoon. I consider working out just as critical as brushing my teeth everyday; it’s routine maintenance for functioning well. Our bodies were made to move, and that holds true regardless of what week it is.
3. Schedule time to think, even on sabbatical.
Theoretically, the entire sabbatical week is a break from obligation and time to think. In practice, though, you still find yourself filling time with little projects, meetings, or work you agree to on sabbatical. It’s a natural human tendency – we see free time and put it to use. Those five days seem to fly by even faster when you have the whole week free to spend as you like. Even after several sabbaticals, it’s easy to start out Monday wondering how you’re going to entertain yourself and arrive at Saturday wondering where the week went.
Every Friday, I block off two hours for my Think Hour. The first hour is spent thinking back over the previous week and reflecting on what I’ve learned and topics or stories I’d like to explore in more detail. There are no hard and fast goals for the hour, apart from just being quiet and thinking. I don’t read during this time. Often I’ll jot down notes of things to look up later, and I write my thoughts out, but the object is to think, to process the activities of the past week. After the first hour, I go directly into a weekly review, noting the progress made on my goals and making a plan for the next week. I spend the remainder of the second hour clearing up my inbox in Evernote, processing every note and filing away each piece of information I’ve saved over the week. It’s a key part of every week for me to adjust and reassess periodically. During the six-week work cycle, I schedule the Think Hour so it doesn’t get forgotten while I’m working.
The first year of writing online,I didn’t schedule the Think Hour over my sabbatical weeks. “Why schedule those two hours when I have an entire week to think and reflect?”I thought. As it turns out, if it doesn’t get scheduled, it doesn’t happen. I’d go through the week relaxing and thinking and reading, but without that dedicated time on Friday specifically for quiet thinking, review, and planning, I started the next Monday frazzled and without direction. It was a disaster. Now, I do a Think Hour and weekly review every week, even on sabbatical. If it ends up being shorter, that’s fine. The goal is to go into the next week with a plan informed by reflecting on the previous week’s work.
I’ve also found a lot of value in smaller times set aside for thinking. I tend to save ideas or planning for a set time to address many things at once, but taking a few minutes over the course of the day has benefited me, too. It allows me to find clarity and gives me time to get to the bottom of the problem. It doesn’t have to be an hour or an entire day of deep thinking; I’ve found taking just ten minutes to think through an idea gives surprising clarity. Instead of waiting for an hour of time to think, I’ll take ten minutes to mull over the idea in question. It’s made a huge difference how efficient my days are.
Making it a point to schedule time for thinking has been the greatest source of leverage in my writing over the past year. Time to think or rest doesn’t just present itself; it’s something each of us have to make time for, even in the midst of so much craziness.
Don’t run from problem to problem. Don’t be dragged from week to week. Set aside quiet time to think so you can find the best way forward.
