You’ve got a pile of work – and more keeps coming in. It’s great that all your clients want your help, but you’ve been feeling burnt out and overwhelmed lately. You don’t want to turn down work. After all, don’t you have to get what you can while it’s available? But you haven’t taken a real day to yourself in ages. Work creeps into your family time and your weekends. You just want a day where your phone isn’t constantly ringing or your email notifications aren’t going off every three minutes.
Sounds like it’s time for a vacation.
Sure, you could keep working at this pace.
“I just need to finish this such and such project, and then I’ll take a break,” you tell yourself. But then the next urgent project comes in and you never get that break you promised yourself. And you know that eventually, overexerting yourself will take its toll. Your work, health and energy levels could all suffer as a result.
So take that vacation.
Schedule it now.
It doesn’t have to be a trip. You don’t have to go anywhere. It’s just a day or two for you to do exactly what you wish you were doing when you’re busy with work.
It’ll recharge you and make you even more productive when you return.
Still have doubts about taking off a bit of time? Consider this: How many times have you been buried with work and plans – and then gotten sick right when you were at your busiest and least able to take a break? It’s probably happened a few times.
And every time, the world kept turning. Those weeks when you said you were far too busy to get sick? Those weeks came and went, and things got done – or didn’t – and things were generally okay, even if they didn’t go as planned.
You owe it to yourself to take some time you plan, rather than just some time away from work dictated by an illness.
Summer’s coming. Start making some fun plans now!
Author: Melissa Kamenjarin
Melissa is a Success by Rx copywriter and Spanish/English translator, writer, editor and proofreader specializing in educational materials, health insurance, non-profits, and published fiction and non-fiction books, blogs and websites. Melissa is the Secretary and blog writer for ATISDA (Association of Translators and Interpreters in the San Diego Area). An American Translators Association (ATA) member, she is also the Copy Editor for the ATA Medical Division’s publication, Caduceus.