You Are Doing Holidays All Wrong: The Shocking Truth About Your Wasted Vacation Time

Here is some sage advice on how to get the most out of your holidays. People do not get the maximum benefit because they go about it all wrong. What you really need to do is first recognize that what you are trying to do in a holiday is disconnect from work, let your hair down, forget about work issues and celebrate life. You do not do that by finding a long weekend and blocking a vacation around it so that you get your holiday, a weekend at either end and a 'free holiday' from the statutory vacation day in the middle somewhere.

Shocked? Surprised? "But that's what I always do!" you complain. Well, as a bona fide scientific researcher, I can tell you that it is the wrong approach.

Let's go back to first principles. Let's look at the whole happy-work equation. It includes not only holidays, but long lunches, long weekends, half days and team golf-days (or other activities). But happy work times also includes camaraderie, sharing details of our personal lives and short work weeks.

What we don't like about work falls squarely into space of work-stress, too much to do for the time available, overtime and unreasonable demands from others.

So why pick just one of the happy things, and furthermore, why pick one, while also inviting more of the negative things on your back? When you do a vacation that is bookened with weekends or long weekends - you lose. First you have a full work week leading in, and an full work-week on return. Plus, you have all that backed up work waiting for you upon your return.

When you include a long-weekend stat-holiday in the vacation time, you've also blown that other enjoyable work event - the short-work week.

The smart way to use your vacation time is to wrap it around a weekend. There's an even better approach I'll explain in a minute, but first this initial step. When you wrap your three, four or five vacation day break around an ordinary weekend (not a long weekend!) you win three times. First you get a short week leading into vacation. Brag to your co-workers "Ha, ha, suckers. I'm out of here on Wednesday! Short week for me wahoo!".

Then you are on holidays for a week or so. Live it up, enjoy.

Then when you come back to work on, say the next Thursday: repeat previous bragging. "Wahoo - back from vacation, co-workers. Come look at my pics. Oh and by the way, two day work-week for me this week suckers. Wahoo!"

Okay, you might want to call your co-workers "suckers" a little less often. But if they're still taking conventional, non-high-value vacations like I'm advocating, well...

Okay, now the advanced course.

You find a pending long weekend on the calendar. Say August 4 this year is a vacation day in your country (it is for me). So you would then take time off in the weeks leading up to it, using the aforementioned approach. So, you take three vacation days (Tues, Wed, Thur) in the previous week. What does that do for you, you ask. It's only three days. What value can I get out of three days?

Well look at your work plan for the previous few weeks. At the end of a normal week ending July 25 - "whopee, it's the weekend." Two normal days off - it's summer, it's nice. Then you go back to work the following monday (today). "Ha, ha - I'm off tomorrow bozo's!" (We really have to talk about those disparaging remarks to your co-workers). Then it's three days off in the Big Apple, fun and copious sweating in the high humidity no doubt... but in a fun way, I'm sure. Then your back for Friday. "Hey guys, long weekend coming, yippee."

That's better, no insults there.

Then guess what - long weekend is upon you, and you've got three days off. But wait, it's not over yet. The next week comes along, and it's a short work week! Yippee.

So you've taken just three holiday days, you've had three short work weeks, many days off. Your work hasn't really backed up so much, so your time at the office in the interim was slack enough you could show all your digital pics from your trip. (Oops, not that one!)

Congratulations, you've completed the master class in vacationing. Plus you didn't join all the other slugs on the Friday leading into the long weekend travelling somewhere in crowded airports and on parking-lot highways. Enjoy your new-found vacationing prowess.

Researchinator returns to googling NYC fun spots.