How to take 'Big Time' off
Strategies for making the most of a sabbatical
Have you ever fantasized about taking a few months off work? For today’s Vanderhack, I’m delighted to share a Q&A with DJ DiDonna, author of the new book Big Time Off (not to be confused with my book, Big Time!). DJ’s book is all about how and why to take a sabbatical. He shares his own experience and those of others, with tips for troubleshooting along the way. This Q&A comes from a conversation we had, edited for length and clarity.
Q. Why should somebody take a sabbatical— beyond just that it’s fun to take time off work?
DJ DiDonna: Thinking on the scale of your life, there are probably things that are really important to you that you want to get done that don’t fit neatly in the bucket of vacation or weekends. What the research shows, and what certainly was my experience, is just how important sabbaticals are in the lives of people who take one. It’s what’s called a peak life experience. It changes your life and informs the way you live on the same scale as, for instance, the birth of your child, your wedding day, the death of a loved one. But it’s something that you choose what you spend time on, and when you take it. You’re having a chance to make space for one of the most important times in your life before it’s too late.
Q. Obviously there are things you might need to do at work to make sure that work is covered when you leave, if you’re doing this as part of a job. But what else should you think about before taking time off? Are there things to think about going into it so you don’t feel like you’re wasting this time?
DJ DiDonna: I don’t want to give too many recommendations, because I want people to plan and experience their own time off, and oftentimes doing it “wrong” can be instructive. I spent my sabbatical walking 900 miles around Japan on a pilgrimage, and I was passing people, going really fast, checking my watch for when I would finish, and counting my steps. That’s obviously not the way to do it.
But one concrete recommendation I do give is for people to journal. You can journal before, to understand your headspace, and journal during, so you’re capturing what things are valuable and that you want to do more of, and what things could you have done away with. You can note hypotheses you had about what you would like, or what you want your life to be like, that turn out not to be right.
I would also say, broadly, to spend time in the first phase of your sabbatical resting, detoxing, and getting out of your head and into your body. A lot of folks will swap work for becoming fluent in a foreign language, or writing a book, but we spend so much time in our heads. I encourage people to be doing pottery, something with their hands, yoga, going on long hikes, just getting into your body.
Often, people are running on adrenaline. They’re like, “I finally cleared the space for this time off, so I gotta get a bunch of [stuff] done” — as opposed to taking a break, giving yourself a little bit of a rest and recovery phase before going off to do the next thing.
And then, I think you want to make sure you have enough time to really sink into a sabbatical and make sure you’re disconnected — maybe geographically, which I think makes things easier — but at the very least deleting apps, making sure that work can’t get to you. You build a kind of firewall between you and any sort of work, divvying up and sending out your responsibilities for other people to get done.
Q. If someone has stepped away from work for a while, they probably want to enjoy the time. But there are still a lot of things you have to do in life that are annoying. Do you have any advice for things like getting your car registration done, or taking your pet to the vet? Is there a way to divvy those out or treat them so you don’t feel like you’re still just doing a bunch of annoying stuff?
DJ DiDonna: If you were to say you have to take three months off starting next month, it would be a huge pain. Like, “I’ve got this dental appointment!” If it’s 5 years from now, you can plan. If you say, “I’m going to take 2 months off in the summer of 2031,” then you can have all the appointments set, you can rent out your house, you can save up to decrease the financial cost. I think we’re so used to looking right in front of us that we can’t imagine how crazy it would be not to take care of all these things. Whereas if you’re thinking far enough in advance, it’s just your life, not an exception to your life. Things will flow around it. You’ll find people to adopt your pet for 2 months, you’ll find a way to defray the cost of your mortgage, you’ll schedule your dentist appointment so that doesn’t intersect.
Q. In your book, you mention that a lot of sabbaticals are not intentional. So it’s not that you work for one of these cool companies that gives you 3 months off after 5 years, it’s that people lose a job, or they have to leave a job for whatever reason, and they don’t have something immediately lined up. I imagine that could be very stressful. You want to spend time figuring out what you’re going to do in the future, but you also want to have some relaxation and take advantage of this time that you’re not working. Is there a good mindset to be in for an unintentional sabbatical so that you can still relax but not worry so much?
DJ DiDonna: At the very beginning, you want to do some level setting. How much money do I have? What’s my general burn rate? How long can I go? Figure out how long of a runway you have, and then move the calendar back a bit, and say, okay, I’m gonna be really stressed about this in 6 months. So I’m gonna give myself two months and I’m not going to be stressed at all. And then I’m going to set a calendar reminder in two months and then I’m going to say “Do I want to get a job? Or do I actually want to extend it out a couple months?” You don’t import all that future stress to now. It’s so valuable to try to create this space. You can say “Why don’t I just live as though this month is impenetrable, and then I’ll check in with myself, so I’m not worried that I’ll lose track of time at the end of the month, and make a plan from there?” You’re wayfinding your way through it, as opposed to posting about it on LinkedIn and having a bunch of people ask, are you okay? Can I connect you to a job? And then you’re in the job search before you’ve even had a chance to get into the depths of it.