A Gentle Nudge to Take Time Off

Encouragement for taking a break from work, even when there’s less to look forward to.

A note about privilege: this article mainly addresses people who are employed and currently have unused time off available to them, as well as those who are self-employed and have the financial flexibility to take time off from work.

This is Biscuit. He has unlimited time off.

Since the pandemic began, I’ve had countless conversations with my coaching clients about burnout and overwhelm. When these topic arise, I often ask about time off.

Time off from work is not a magic solution to stress, burnout, and overwhelm. But gathering some precise, tangible data around time off can provide context on the circumstances around an otherwise amorphous feeling. And lately it’s helped me observe a pattern across many clients and friends.

In recent months, my conversations about time off have often looked something like this:

• How much time off is available to you?

I have unlimited vacation.

• When was the last time you took time off? (More than just a day here or there, or a long weekend)

December 2019.

• When’s your next scheduled time off?

I don’t have any scheduled.

Before the pandemic, coaching conversations about time off were much easier. Often just taking a moment to acknowledge the simple facts (oh gosh! it’s been six months since I’ve taken any time off!) would prompt someone to take action and schedule a much-needed break. It was a relatively easy starting point for low-hanging fruit (let’s just see if making use of the time off that’s already available to me helps me feel better—if not, we’ll go from there). We could then focus our conversation on setting intentions for the vacation and designing a purposeful break to look forward to.

But in these unusual times, conversations around time off bring up an enormous amount of emotion, anxiety, and resistance. Here are a few common responses:

• There’s nothing to look forward to. I can’t do anything I’d normally enjoy during a vacation, like traveling or spending time with people beyond my household.
• Time off won’t feel like a break. Without work, I’ll just be stuck with my loneliness or with my overwhelm as a parent.
• Things just feel too uncertain. I’m afraid I’ll be laid off or lose my job if I take time off, even though it’s officially available to me. I’d rather wait until everything just feels more normal/stable.

I can empathize with that resistance. In fact, I’ve been waffling myself about taking the time off I’d planned from Christmas to New Year’s. In a previous time that now feels like another life, I had once happily blocked off those dates on my calendar for a visit from my sister. Last Christmas, we went to see Little Women and cried our eyes out. We went to restaurants and did other festive Santa Fe holiday things. There was a beautiful meal with friends at a long, packed table under twinkling lights.

Now that her trip is canceled, I feel despondent about the time off. I’m bracing for some disappointment, loneliness, and boredom. I haven’t decided what to do with those days, and I would much rather just pack them with client sessions and projects to avoid my feelings. Plus, I could save up more money! The anxiety/fear/scarcity part of my brain loves that idea.

Fortunately, I’ve been reading Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, an excellent book by Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA. Their perspective on emotion hit me right away:

In short, emotions are tunnels. If you go all the way through them, you get to the light at the end. Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion.

I can see that avoiding time off is a way for me to avoid feeling my feelings about this time. But I’m already in the tunnel. Avoiding my discomfort is just postponing it. The only way out is through.

If you’ve been avoiding taking time off too, I want to encourage you to take it if you can, even though you might not be looking forward to it. Here are a few prompts to help you get there:

• If you’re worried about your job security, ask yourself, “Am I more at risk of a layoff due to the health of the business, or burnout, which could lead to a decline in my performance?” Giving yourself the breaks you need will help you do more of your best work, and it’ll also help increase your resilience in the face of a challenging circumstance like layoffs. If it feels psychologically safe to do so, you could also consider having a conversation with your manager or HR, in which you share your worries and ask directly whether taking time off could affect your job security.
• If you dread the idea of time off, ask yourself, “What am I avoiding?” And, “Is avoidance helping, or just postponing discomfort?” Time off might create the space you need to process uncomfortable feelings, have necessary conversations, or make adjustments that’ll improve your day-to-day life when you return to work.
• If you feel like there’s nothing to look forward to, try starting at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and working your way up, asking, “What needs attention?” Even when there’s a lot you can’t do, you might find something to look forward to in simply having more time for the basics, like sleeping in, creating more nourishing meals, taking more walks, or talking more with loved ones.

“Sunny Side Up,” a puzzle from Whiled by Lan Truong

Another word of caution: it’s easy to fill up a staycation with a backlog of tasks—things you feel like you should take care of and catch up on. And if you’re already feeling depleted, you probably have a substantial backlog of those things. That can feel overwhelming, and it can sometimes be counterproductive. As you think about how to use time off at home, here are some questions to start with:

• What will help me release and process emotions and stress? Consider things like exercise, journaling, and talking with loved ones and/or a therapist.
• What restores me? If checking tasks off of your to-do list energizes you, have at it! But if not, devote as much of your time off as possible to things that fill you up, before putting pressure on yourself to get things done. Consider things like baths, reading or listening to books or podcasts that interest you, tinkering with a hobby, learning something new, or just generally following your curiosity.
• Ask your future self: When I return to work, what will I be glad I did with this time?

If you’ve been wavering about taking time off, I hope this material helps nudge you closer to a yes. And if you’d like some support around taking time off or getting unstuck, let’s talk soon.