Takeaway: When you don't use up your vacation time, you not only volunteer your time—as one study found, you may also become less successful. Estimated Reading Time: 1 minutes, 4s.
Here's a lesson I've learned the hard way: it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking the world needs you more than it does. Provided you plan properly, stepping back or disconnecting from your work will not lead the world to fall apart. I'd argue the opposite: taking some time off is one of the best things you can do for your productivity. The research backs this up.
According to an article by Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan in the Harvard Business Review, more than half of Americans (55%) fail to use all their vacation time. On top of this, while Americans took an average of three weeks of vacation time in 2000, they took just over two weeks off when measured a couple of decades later.
Shawn and Michelle discovered something else remarkable in the research: taking time off literally pays. As they found (and write): “If you take 11 or more of your vacation days, you are more than 30% more likely to receive a raise.” In other words: when you leave vacation time unused, you're not only volunteering your time—you're also setting yourself back in your career.
The lesson here is clear: if you frequently leave vacation days unused, use them! Your career and productivity depend on it.
