Leave and Work

THE Easter break has come and gone and if you are like me you are back at work relishing the idea of a short week due to the past long weekend.
My calender resembles Swiss cheese the way the next two months are peppered through with breaks.
We have pretty good leave and holiday terms here in Zimbabwe and unless you are paid hourly or facing a crippling overtime bill there are no complaints about the extra time off.
Seeing as we have all this free time floating around I thought we could address it a bit, the good and the bad.
Breaks are important. There is no doubt about that. Humans need regular rest time, physically, mentally and spiritually.
Across the world we have weekends, time off and holidays of various lengths, most of it enshrined in legislation and contract.
Keeping the Sabbath holy has been around for thousands of years. So here is the good part.
Take a day off once a week and do nothing. Nothing is not quite true.
Keep physical exertion to a minimum but take the day to reflect and recharge.
Engage in spiritual activity, the Sabbath is not so much about rest as about honouring God. Meditate. Think or read. Now for the part no worker really wants to hear.
The flip side of taking one day off a week is you have to work the other six! What, work six days a week and not five?
That is correct. What about the weekend? Is not the two days off at the end of the week entrenched in the core of our very souls?
No it’s not, now work. I am not just talking about office work you munchkin.
Work on your home, your garden, your family or your vehicle (if you wash it with your kids you get to hit car and family at the same time).
And if you want, work on your business. Make your day productive, not just spent vegetating in front of the “idiot box”.
“But you don’t understand I am so tired after Friday”. No I understand perfectly, you are lazy.
Working that extra day is a 20 percent boost to your life’s productivity.
So I had a job. I got a month vacation leave, 12 days annual leave, 11 public holidays, three months sick leave, periodic compassion leave, and weekends.
It is a wonder I got anything done. Between the first three alone that works out at over 15 percent of my time off work while I got paid for doing nothing.
I am not against leave.
I just think we need to be a little smarter about it, both as employers and employees.
Would two weeks leave a year be enough? Perhaps not, but it is a question worth asking.
I can see mental cogs turning, employers going “but we would need to increase salaries to make up for the extra time worked”, employees going “work more you got to be kidding me right”.
The real issue is that we need to shift away from a mentality that seeks to screw over the system for everything it has got, to one that values productivity and fosters growth.
In the organisation that offered me the job above no one worked overtime, people would stop working 30 minutes before the end of the day in order to pack their bags so that they could leave right on time.
Any attempt to put in any extra effort earned you the wrath of your colleagues.
It was a very destructive community and I got out as soon as possible.
Now I believe in breaks and vacations. There is nothing more energising than an extended time away from your desk.
But use the time wisely. Rest a lot but also use the time to achieve things you would not normally be able to do.
Too many people go on leave and just sit at home and do nothing more than wear out a path between the fridge and the sofa.
It is fine to do that once in a while, but not for an entire month. Plan your leave time. Go away.
Travel and expose yourself to other ideas. Even if you cannot get out of the country, head somewhere locally and not so you can just sit in your hotel room the whole time either.
Google things to do and see in the area. Use your holiday to expand yourself, take books to read, plot family activities, explore a different culture.
Do not do so much that it tires you out, but stay productive all the same.
Keep a journal, jot down ideas for the office that may come up so you can put them into practice when you get back to work.
Switch off your phone, forget your email, and remember what it is like to live without interruptions (see how much you can actually get done without interrupting your chain of thought to check your Facebook account every half hour).
Make it a memorable time in building relationships within your family.
Take the concept of productivity and expand it beyond the boundaries of your office.
I went through two and a half books this weekend, they were fun, easy reading but expanded me a little bit more in terms of exposure to good writing.
There is a balance between work and play. Too much work and you will have an early heart attack.
Too little and you may not have enough money and starve to death.
In the words of ancient wisdom “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a thief and want like an armed man”.