Prevent Burnout. Discover High Quality Time-off.
The holidays are close enough to taste our favorite family recipes, as well as the sweet taste of that year’s end time off. A third of offices close during the holidays, seeing improved productivity, healthier employees, less overhead, better employee engagement, and importantly–a strengthened culture of taking time off seriously. According to Allianz Global’s 11th annual “Vacation Confidence Index” survey, half of Americans don’t take an annual vacation. What’s more: the American Time Use survey revealed that 30% of full-time employees report working weekends and holidays.“
Getting time-off alone doesn’t guarantee that we’ll have healthier or more engaged lives. It’s the quality of time-off that matters.
With many offices shut down and colleagues on PTO, the last week of the year is the perfect opportunity to prioritize High Quality Time-Off. High Quality Time-Off (HQTO) is a five part framework for making the most of your time off. Developed by our team at UC Berkeley, HQTO is getting emotional, cognitive, and physical distance from work during your off hours. This allows you to maximize your recovery from work and reduce stress levels back to baseline.
1. Active, Not Passive
Doing something creatively or physically active gives your mind something else to focus on aside from work. Active experiences can trigger a cognitive change where you can force your mind to stop focusing on work stressors. This can give you a greater sense of control in your life, which is especially helpful when we understand that feeling a lack control is a key driver of burnout.
In his book on flow states, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines active experiences as those that require concentration of attention, have a goal, and require skill. Active experiences help us achieve cognitive detachment via perspective taking and distraction, two tactics that have been proven to impact emotional regulation. There is nothing that makes you realize how minor your work problems are like hanging off the edge of a cliff while rock climbing, for example.
This is not to say that there isn’t a place for low energy, restful activities like watching movies or staring at your phone. These can be helpful in moderation. The point is that those activities may not be enough to fully disconnect from your work stress. Creatively and physically active experiences can help you do that - in whatever frequency and intensity works for you.
2. Intrinsically Satisfying
Reconnecting with who you are outside of work can help you get some emotional distance from work stress. Activities that are intrinsically satisfying are ones that we do because they sound genuinely fun and fulfilling to us as individuals, based on our interests, values, and preferences. During intrinsically satisfying activities, we have an opportunity to activate their pleasure centers and experience emotional distance from work. Our motivation for performing certain actions deeply impacts the quality of and satisfaction of our experiences. Respite activities that are intrinsically motivating allow us to reconnect with our sense of autonomy and control and push back against the feeling of helplessness that characterizes late-stage burnout. Intrinsically motivating activities can also support prosocial behavior and contribute to an increased sense of community and connectedness.
In turn, this increased sense of community and connection serves as an additional resource to prevent burnout. Because they are rooted in our personal values, passions, and interests, examples of intrinsically satisfying experiences will vary by person.
What are things you want to do, regardless of what you “should” do? Do you love swimming, but never have time? Do you miss dancing and singing? What did you enjoy as a kid? What does your ideal weekend look like? You probably already have some ideas about what feels fun to you. Making time for those can remind you about what really matters to you in life.
3. Disconnected from devices
Turning off phones, laptops and devices used for work is critical for creating physical distance from work. Our culture values 24/7 responsiveness, even though this behavior can be detrimental to our personal and professional lives. Research shows that too much time online leads to exhaustion, sleep disruption, weight gain, vision loss, body aches, reduced life expectancy, and increased risk of depression and suicide. HQTO sets a boundary with Slack, email, and other tools of an always-on work culture. Purposeful disconnection from the very devices that have become integral for our work (computers, smart phones) helps reduce some of the anxiety, sleep problems, and stress from burnout. Once again, the frequency of digital disconnection will vary from person to person. You may be the type that needs a 2 hour offline buffer before bed, or the type that doesn’t mind being always on as long as you get to disconnect on a camping trip once a year. It’s all up to you - self awareness and intention-setting are what matter.
4. Sensory stimuli
Experiencing a change in your sensory experience can immediately shift your brain into a different context, reinforcing that boundary with work stress. Sensory inputs increase the excitement and memorability of our experiences. Research in this area abounds, with everything from research in the fields of Enclothed Cognition to hydrotherapy pointing to the importance of incorporating a change in your physical experience in order to change your mental experience. For example, research shows that what you wear will impact how you behave. If you want to have fun, wear your fun clothes. If you want to be professional, wear your professional clothes. Whether you like cooking a fragrant dinner each night, getting some fresh air during a morning walk, dipping your toes in the nearest beach or lake, or even just taking a hot shower - sensory change will help you move into a new state of mind.
5. Elicits Pride a Pride Response
Activities that challenge us are more likely to strengthen our sense of personal competence. Incorporating milestones into your time-off practices will help us demonstrate to ourselves that we can do hard things. This mindset will transfer to our work challenges, too. This is, essentially, building resilience.
Proactively practicing courage through activities that ask us to be brave boosts our sense of pride and satisfaction in ourselves. Doing this consistently can contribute to our feelings of self-respect. Plus, being proud of ourselves feels good. Doing something that makes you feel proud of yourself can look different based on the person, context, and activity. For one person, doing a one mile hike is an achievement. For someone else, getting to bed at 11 PM will give you that feeling. Creating something (woodworking, pottery, art, drawing), achieving something (completing a triathlon, doing a backpacking trip, traveling somewhere new), or experiencing something (attending an art exhibit, going to a festival, planning a camping trip) can all be a part of it. Being consistent with doing things that make us proud of ourselves helps develop the mindset that: no matter what happens with work, you will be fine.
The highest quality time-off experiences satisfy all five criteria, though these can vary from person to person. While day-to-day healthy habits, like going for a run or making dinner, can be a form of HQTO, we also encourage folks to think outside the box this holiday season. Some HQTO examples we love include:
- Mushroom foraging
- Visiting your local botanical garden
- Taking a dance class
- Glassblowing
- Surfing
- Fishing
- Cooking or baking classes
- Wine tasting
- Kayaking
- Skiing
- Whitewater rafting
- Visits to your local museum
- Visit your local aquarium, and more.
Note for Managers: Employees will look to you to model HQTO behavior. If you’re pinging them on New Year’s Eve about that outstanding question or task, they will assume they are expected to respond during holidays as well. Make sure to model intentional disconnection for your team. And remember, this is an investment in future peak performance. Research shows that making time-off predictable, accessible, and required will boost both employee and client satisfaction.
Are you interested in learning more about how High Quality Time-Off can improve retention and employee engagement in your workplace? Contact us at hello@cultiveit.io to learn about our offerings!