Every designer and every business owner has a battery. Fail to recharge it, and you’ll turn brittle and easily broken. It’s important to take well-intentioned breaks that leave you feeling like a new person ready to tackle the challenges of business once again. But your business can’t survive without you for a week, much less a month, right? That’s where you’re (hopefully) wrong. In this article, we’ll lay out how you can take a sabbatical, what you should get out of it, and how to empower your team to make the most of your absence.
What is a Sabbatical?
A sabbatical is more than a long vacation. It’s an intentional leave from work that lasts weeks or months, and while rest is an important aspect, there is also an aspect of research and further learning. Personal development is at the forefront, even if all that means is taking time away from the busy day-to-day work that’s dragging you down.
If you think you need a sabbatical, determine if you’re ready or if you’re just burned out. Are you in the mindset to learn a new skill if you took a break, or is scrolling through cute pet videos in bed about all you feel up for? If it’s the latter, you might consider a more traditional break for a shorter period of time, even scheduling regular small breaks like a three-day weekend every few weeks. You can also work on moving yourself out of the busy work and minutiae of work and fully stepping into the CEO role.
Preparing for Your Absence
Just stepping away with no warning could be disastrous. You need to prepare your business to operate without you for an extended period of time. Step one is delegation. Whatever critical tasks you were responsible for need to be covered by someone else. Categorize your time based on topic and identify the most important chunks to delegate, and who on the team has the bandwidth and skills to do so. It’s especially important to identify any places in which you’re ordinarily the bottleneck or the only person on the team who is able to do a certain task. These will be the most difficult but most important tasks to delegate. Frame your absence as an opportunity for your team to perform without daily input (or even micromanagement), showing them that you believe in their ability to succeed.
Making the Most of Your Sabbatical
No matter how tempting it might be, you can’t do any work while on your break! That means no meetings, online or in person. Take this opportunity to fully disconnect and recharge. Meditation, exercise, and time to think are important. They allow your brain to make sense of new knowledge and be more willing to absorb it. Any “work” you do should be mostly relegated to reading and skill-building. Catch up on your reading list, whether it’s just for fun or for education. It can be hard to take time during the normal workday to read books, read articles, and watch webinars, but this is the perfect time to catch up on everything that you’ve bookmarked for the last year. You can also reflect on what’s gone well, what hasn’t, and how things should change when you return. It’s easier to take a step back and think of the business more objectively when you’ve taken some time away from it, so enjoy looking at your firm with fresh eyes.
Returning with Clarity
T show up differently, you need to feel differently. And by recharging, you’ll not only feel different, but better. A reinvigorated CEO brings higher-quality energy and just a better mood. This can be infectious and passed on to your employees! If the team thrived in your absence, then you’ve successfully moved from managing to leading. In an ideal world, the business can mostly function without you. The sabbatical is the true test. Hopefully, you return with a head full of ideas. Don’t expect them to all be accepted and implemented immediately. It’ll probably be pretty overwhelming if you dump them all out at once. And maybe, if you’ve built a proactive team, they’ll have thought of the same things, or something even better!
Resting and recharging isn’t an indulgence. It doesn’t have to be in another country or on a beach (though we won’t judge). However you spend your sabbatical, do it with intention, and do it before you become too brittle. Apply to Pearl Collective today if you want to learn how to make the most of your first sabbatical, and prepare your team for your break.
For further information on the topic of sabbaticals, check out our podcast episode where co-founders Gail and Erin discuss the ups and downs of Gail’s sabbatical.