Time Off

I was inspired to write this blog by Stefan Sagmeister a famous Austrian born designer.

I watched a video of him speak about the value of taking "Time Off" from one's work i.e. a sabbatical and do something one is interested in. That video sent thinking waves in my mind.

Stefan says that one learns quite a lot during the so called time off aka sabbatical. How true,i cannot agree more with him.

We are all so stereotyped in our daily chores that we forget what we want to do.We are embroiled so much with work that lot of things skip our mind. Mind you i am not talking about holidays which most of us do take,this is specifically focussing on a sabbatical.

Sabbatical as dictionary defines it is a short break that is taken every seventh year . Stefan in his video says that this does lot of wonders. Lot of my friends who are going to read this blog are going to think , is this guy become 'crazy'.

Well not really . Let's understand this in the right sense. How many of us take time daily or even on a monthly basis to think first of all. Our lives are so robotized these days that it is just short of being programmed. It so happens that even some of surprises that nature throws at us on a daily basis are by-passed with precision or near precision.

Life has become so monotonous and how many times in a day we hear people say that life is so dull and has nothing new to offer .

Stefan did have an answer to this. He basically forced himself to close down his design studio for customers for a year and go to different/far off places . He said that when he was back from his break, he made more profits than ever and did things in a different way. The reason is one immerses oneself into what he or she likes during the break.

That could be true to people like us too , although i can imagine that taking a years break from work can be too much of an ask but it should be possible for us to do , if only we do careful planning.

Half way through the video Stefan gave a wonderful view of planning . The first time he took the break, he basically said to himself that he would take a break and do different things but at the end did nothing. The second time , he actually planned what he wanted to do and he stuck to the plan,it worked.He shows the example of what and how he planned.

Even for us it could be possible with a little planning. I do know some people who take a break to go and study , we can do different things all of us are different and possibilities are end less.

So let's think about it and see where and how we want to let the steam off.

If you are interested in the video - http://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time_off.html