Why a sabbatical is a good idea no matter what your age is

Many of my colleagues, especially the smarter younger ones, already took sabbaticals. To me personally the idea felt a bit strange, though. This summer, after eight years with the firm, I took my first one for two months and was excited about this experiment. My key theme for the sabbatical was to ?not have an agenda“, to digitally unplug from the business (also from Linkedin) and to decide at very short notice what I wanted to do that day or week. Starting almost everyday with a routine like in a regular week, getting up early in the morning, ?me-time“ with practicing Zazen, stretching and running with the dog. Two weeks out of eight were planned beforehand. Northern Italy with my wife? with culinary and cultural inspiration, taking part in the swimming race to cross Lake Starnberg (thanks, Dwight Cribb ) and a week in the Austrian mountains with my partner colleague, Jürgen Lademann ). Initially it felt a bit odd to not have a plan everyday and to go with the flow but after the first four weeks I started enjoying it immensely.

It was great to

• decide to learn sailing a few days before the course started,
• spend a few days with your dog alone in the Bavarian alps and later again with your dog and daughter at the same place,
• enjoy a small Austrian Mountain Chalet Resort for a few days that lets you calm down very quickly in the same way as the Maldives do,
• go grocery shopping during the week, being amazed by the variety of choice and getting lost in the aisles sometimes and completely forgetting time,
• make coffee for your children before they start their working day and not to have any calls yourself,
• spontaneously visit new places in your home town Munich,
• spontaneously meet an old friend for golfing in the mountains for two days and get to know great people at the dinner table next to you turning the evening into a very fun night with lots of laughter,
• read a book (?Das infizierte Denken“ from Anders Indset ) and listen to two audio books (?Kompass für die Seele“ from Bas Kast and ?4000 weeks: time management for mortals“ from Oliver Burkeman) that I highly recommend everyone to read.

Of course, even without a plan, I wanted to read more and do more activities, but that would have defeated the purpose…My first Yoga lesson is still to come (not forgotten, Christina Hoffer ).

These are my key learnings from ?unplugging“ for two months:

• Your brain needs time to calm down and absence of constant distraction to refresh and boost new ideas. A regular sleep routine is a (mental) health booster (Thank you, Chris Surel ).
• Once you accept the fact that your (life-) time is limited and you cannot control events (only your attitude) you start to act and feel more freely.
• Find novelty and value in the small things and moments - Enjoy the moment for this moment is your life.
• Be humble and thankful for every day you have, you never know if it is your last.
• Appreciate the people around you, in personal and in business life, it truly enriches your life.

It felt great to have an inspiring team event with the Monitor Deloitte team colleagues before fully getting into the Sabbatical (thank you Alexander Mogg and Thorsten Zierlein ) and starting again with an awesome team event from our amazing Deloitte Digital CX team (thank you Sofia Gindina & team). Personal connections are key.

I highly recommend to try the unplugging exercise during a job if you have not done it yet. I found it extremely rewarding and am sure to experiment further in the future.

Happy to be back!