We love you, Annual Leave.

Annual leave. Oh sweet, sweet annual leave.

Even if you love your job, you count down the days until you get to pop that out of office on your emails and enjoy some downtime.

Last week I treated myself to a week off and visited family overseas. My MD did the usual “don’t think about work, enjoy your time off, don’t feel like you need to reply to my emails” spiel, which I knew was all lies.

After the first email he sent me last Monday morning I could feel his pain, even from 2490 miles away, from the possibility of me not replying (which unfortunately for him I got into holiday mode preeeetty quickly and actually didn’t – sorry Will).

We’re lucky here as we get a week more holiday than a lot of business’ offer. Which also goes up with every year of service as well so if we can put up with Will for long enough, eventually we will legally be able to take half the year off paid and live the dream.

Switching off is just as important as turning up every day. Over working yourself will only, in the long term, mean you end up being unproductive and more than likely end up not enjoying what you do.

Now it’s not possible to take a week off every month (there’s always hope) so day to day, people recommend a short break every hour of focused computer work (let’s be fair, who has time for that?), but whether it’s eating away from your desk, having a walk outside or turning around and facing a wall to avoid having to do anything else – you should always give yourself a break.

We often switch it up and have meetings around the local area (with a pint of Cotswold Premium or two) or work from home for a whole day, half day, few hours or whatevs we may find useful.

Whether you take the odd day of leave for a long weekend, or you take a week off to save yourself from your bosses unequivocal humble brags all day, it’s important you take some time for yourself and maintain that oh so important ‘work life balance’ your company probably pretends to have!

M x