Take your vacation seriously! Really!
It's summer and time to chill, to linger outside after dinner, to slow down a bit, to use the long days to do nothing. The summer state of mind takes root in childhood and maybe that's a good thing. Embracing a slower pace actually has a big payoff. Time off is necessary and leads to new insights and greater productivity.
An article reported in Scientific American, Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime, summarizes evidence that “mental breaks increase productivity, replenish attention, solidify memories, and encourage creativity.”
Harvard Business Reports confirms the value of slowing down in The Upside of Downtime. An experiment conducted at BCG (Boston Consulting Group) found that forcing employees to take days, nights, or extended periods of time off actually increased productivity. And other studies show that brief periods of downtime, like afternoon naps, can restore focus and energy. As Tony Schwartz has written, “human beings perform best and are most productive when they alternate between periods of intense focus and intermittent renewal.”
Tim Kreider wrote in The New York Times. "The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration—it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”
If priming yourself for inspiration isn't reason enough to take time off, there's data to prove that not taking that vacation may be harmful for your career. People who took fewer than 10 of their vacation days per year had a 34.6% likelihood of receiving a raise or bonus in a three-year period of time. People who took more than 10 of their vacation days had a 65.4% chance of receiving a raise or bonus, according to The data Driven Case for Vacation.
So when the hammock calls, know that letting your mind drift may be what's needed for that breakthrough idea to surface. Inactivity allows the formation of obscure connections that can lead to innovative insights. Lemonade anyone?
- denise