Sometimes, you need a day just to sit and get your mind together.

Not every day is GO, GO, GO! If it were, we’d never be able to catch a break for a breather.

Taking vacation days have always been a love/hate relationship for me. Back when I worked for an hourly wage, I grabbed as many shifts as I could during Spring Break. I never got to have the college Spring Break experience. As for Summer break, well, there were just more hours to pick up and work. Looking back, I really don’t know what I have to show for all those hours worked. It was truly a point-in-time whereas the ends justified the means.

This carried over into my non-hourly wage professional life. I had gotten so use to seldom taking time away to finally have a decent amount of time away at my disposal. In the early stages, I’d take a day off here and a day off there. I couldn’t imagine taking an entire week off for vacation. It just seemed unheard of to me.

It wasn’t until I got to Microsoft that I was introduced to the concept of a Mental Health Day. The concept was so foreign to me. An entire day (or days) just to focus on my mental health? Some of my peers combined their Mental Health Days with their summer vacations to fully extend their time away. Nothing was wrong with that. However, I treated my Mental Health Days as sacred. Whenever work seemed to become “too much”, I’d used one of my days. I can’t remember how many we initially had but as of today, they’re combined into what’s called “Holistic Time Off”.

I didn’t realize how much I needed to disconnect from work until I went to Provence in 2022. I separated myself from anything related to work (I even left Twitter!) and truly enjoyed my time away from the computer. The first half of the trip was a retreat and the latter half was spent in solitude.

My brain craved the solitude.

I had so much to sort out with regard to my professional future. So much to sort out for my day to day work tasks. To be honest, I mostly just laid in bed for the second half of the trip and either did nothing or just sat and thought.

When I came back home, I still felt that I needed at least 1 more month away. That was rather unreasonable for me so it was back to work I went.

Last year, Microsoft transitioned to unlimited PTO. Unlimited PTO always felt like this thing that you heard about happening at other tech companies and truly hoped you’d land somewhere that followed this sort of time-away policy. There was a lot of skepticism when it first rolled out. Did that mean that we could take every Friday off? Could I take a full month off with no penalty? How many days off were “too many” days away?

And most important: How soon could I go back to Provence? The experience I had there was so therapeutic for my mental state. I craved it.

Taking time away whenever it felt necessary was a new mindset for me to settle into. I tested the waters with our vacation to Italy. I’m quite glad that I took time away because we became engaged during the trip. But with that aside, I came back to work a bit more refreshed. And shortly after, I transitioned to a new role more suitable for what I wanted in that moment for my personal and professional life.

I haven’t taken proper time away yet this year to just collect my thoughts on life and career. I’ve had some extended time away but it was due to bereavement leave - which is totally not the space for taking time away to think about sorting through my career.

I travel soon to visit my dad and afterwards I’ll attend a tech conference. So, it’s not a true disconnection. Who knows, I may just take a few days off to sit under our tree once I return home.

Wouldn’t that be lovely?

June is my birthday month and to celebrate, I’m sharing “30 things I learned about careers for my 30-ish birthday”. I’m turning 30 (again)! So what better way to celebrate than with a month long series for the Millennial Workweek! These learnings are in no particular order and dives into my personal observations/realizations I’ve had in my careers across fashion and tech. Wanna chime in? Feel free to leave a comment!