Take A Week Off
I have always found the weeks after Memorial Day good for taking time off to recharge. The pace of the market slows down allowing one to focus on other things. While intrinsically valuable, this time away from the market also allows one to recharge and come back more energized.
For instance, consider the earnings calendar for next week. There are very few companies of any interest reporting. For me personally, I have positions in Campbell Soup (CPB) and DocuSign (DOCU). Besides for that, I don’t see much of interest.
In his book Rest, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang argues that rest is essential for productivity. If we grind too hard all the time, we burn out. We must learn to cultivate the yin and yang between work and rest. Further, deep work requires us to get away from the daily grind and let deeper connections form in our unconscious. That’s why a week away is intrinsically rewarding but also makes sense from a productivity perspective. Incorporating rest helps you do Deep Work – the title of another excellent book on productivity by Cal Newport.
In our culture of “total work” many of us feel guilty for taking a day off, much less a vacation. But the truth is that these breaks recharge the mind and body and lead to a higher level of sustainable productivity.
