How to take (a little) time off, guilt-free
Know what's expected, then get ahead of the game
I often hear from people that they feel guilty taking time off work. I’m not talking about taking vacation days, which is an entirely separate discussion. I’m talking about people in theoretically flexible jobs who worry about leaving early for a child’s camp show, or going for a longer run on a nice weekday morning. They could be working, so they feel bad if they aren’t during what are (traditionally) work hours.
I’m sure there are many psychological factors at play here. But one practical approach is to figure out exactly what tasks are associated with your job, how long it will take to do a good job on them, and when you can plan in the time to do them. Then, if everything is accounted for during a particular chunk of time, you can take that time off, guilt-free.
So, for instance, I tend to plan my upcoming weeks on Thursday or Friday. I figure out what needs to be accomplished by the end of the next week — both my immediate obligations and steps toward bigger projects that I’ve identified as goals. I figure out where these tasks can go, with a buffer for things to go wrong.
But then I can move things around if I want in order to open time up. If I’ve planned to record my Before Breakfast podcast episodes for the week on Thursday morning from 8:30 - 9:30 a.m., and I manage to get them recorded before Thursday, then that time is open. I have done what I was supposed to do on Thursday morning. I can go do something else if I want without worrying that I’m falling behind.
Now, of course, there is the obvious caveat here — I work for myself and work flexibly. There are many kinds of work that don’t lend themselves to working ahead. You can’t clean a patient’s teeth the day before they are scheduled to come visit! A train conductor can’t get ahead on his route and hop off to go do something else.
But for much knowledge work, even if you work for someone else, getting ahead of the game is definitely doable. I find it’s helpful to map out exactly what is expected in any given week. What accomplishments would make it feel like a really good week? When can you do those things? When will you leave a buffer for when unexpected things come up? It might be worth having a conversation with your manager about expectations and what he or she would consider an incredibly successful week as well.
But then if you’ve done all these things by Friday morning, you can go to that camp show on Friday afternoon guilt free. It’s been a great week! Or if you’d like to meet a friend for a longer lunch on Thursday, and you’ve taken care of all but a few things (that you’ve got more than enough time blocked out for on Friday), again, you’re ahead of the game. Enjoy your lunch. The expected work is accounted for — so you don’t need to worry about it.
I think I’m getting better at making a more manageable list for my week. Yesterday, I realised about 330 that I had finished my essentials and didn’t have the energy to try something new, so poked my head into my 6 year old’s room and said “want to cuddle up and read Percy Jackson?” We both felt like this was an amazing treat, and so much more restorative than looking at my email and trying to force myself to start something without the requisite energy. I’ve got 5 hours on the train this weekend so have queued up a bunch of work reading as next week is meeting heavy, and I’ll appreciate a bit of focused reading work/something writing related ticked off my list.
I agree! But also, I've found that my desire to "get ahead" just in case little ones or sick, etc., leads to me spending more time on a task than maybe I need to - and my buffer can also get eaten up by other things. Or, the parameters of a task change, so my early work may no longer be relevant. So I've been going to opposite way and trying to do more "creative procrastination" and not work on tasks that can be done later on in the summer or semester, which can free up time now that I actually use instead of repurposing for other work.