I’m crappy at managing my vacation and forcing myself to rest. Don’t get me wrong, until I realize the truth, I think I’m good at this.

Last weekend I suffered from health issues, and it’s still not entirely away. I don’t know exactly what’s the matter but reflecting on the roots of this, I realized that something has been very wrong for quite some time now.

I claim to have an amazing life — being a web developer that is allowed to work remotely is a great opportunity. I managed to do a lot of fun things this year, going outside into nature, hiking, climbing, mountainbiking. All these days have been amazing but while I took a one or two days off here and there in combination with a weekend, I never took real vacation time.

Today I looked up in my calendar when was the last time that I hadn’t been working for longer than a few days: Last August, exactly one year ago. This made me realize how bad I am at taking holiday.

Working on usually 1-3 projects at a time makes it easier to take a few days off instead of two weeks. But the work alone isn’t the issue, it’s the things that happen in your life. There are weekends where family celebrations happen (that’s no recovery), there are weekends where you do sports (that’s no recovery for your body, only for your brain), and there are days and weeks where you need to manage with bureaucracy or similar stuff. While you take a day off for those things, they’re usually not relaxing. Yet, your body and mind from time to time needs to relax.

Relaxing is important. Doing nothing is important (I suck at that). Taking vacation regularly is important. Reflect how much you took care of your body over the last year more often…

Next week, right after the NightlyBuild I gladly leave for an entire month of vacation. I just decided to not take my Macbook with me and I’ll not work on anything during that time.