Take the PTO

January 7th, 2025

Over the much-needed holiday break, I forced myself to do something I rarely do:

I stopped focusing on work and I took the time off.

Which is unusual for me. I don’t take the PTO. Even though it’s often the reason why most people decide to work for a specific company that offers it. I typically avoid it because I can already see the backlog waiting when I return. The emails piling up, the catch-up, the pressure to prove I didn’t fall behind. I make myself constantly available. It’s just who I am. An overachiever at heart. And while that isn’t always a bad thing, it can be exhausting.

So, this time, I made it my mission to be present.

To paint. To write. To do the things I enjoy.

To take advantage of the time I had been given back.

I stayed up until 3 a.m. drinking wine and painting while listening to music.

I sat on the porch of our camp, wrapped in a blanket, coffee in hand, watching the sun hit the trees, and jotted down the thoughts that had been piling up in the background of my mind for months.

I read my favorite books.

I was able to set more intentional personal and professional goals for myself. In retrospect, it made me more motivated.

I did the things we tell ourselves we don’t have time to do.

It was liberating.

Why do we do this? Why do we never take the PTO?

I know I’m not the only one.

Somewhere along the way, we were conditioned not to. We equated being constantly available with being valuable. If I wasn’t responding, wasn’t present, wasn’t “on,” I felt like I was falling behind. PTO started to feel less like a benefit and more like a liability. Something I was sure I’d pay for later with stress, late nights, and guilt.

We convince ourselves the profits will fall.

We’ll miss the sale.

We’ll lose momentum.

But on some level, that isn’t true. The company won’t collapse because you have taken the time off. And if it does, it isn’t because of you. That’s a management issue. In the midst of a layoff, no one is checking whether you left PTO unused.

What I didn’t realize was how much it was costing me not to step away. Not just energy, but imagination. When every day is about output, there’s no room for input. No space to think, to feel, to create. I wasn’t just tired. I was quietly depleting. And I didn’t notice because depletion had become my baseline.

This break was different. Not because work slowed down, but because I made a deliberate choice about how I would spend my time. The default option would have been to stay plugged in. Instead, I chose to step back and actually take the time that was offered.

We glorify burnout as dedication, but it’s often just inefficiency dressed up as loyalty. The work was still there when I came back, of course, but I was able to tackle it with a clearer mind and a slower, more intentional pace.

The break forced me to be honest with myself.

Honest about what truly matters.

Honest about what drains me.

Honest about how unsustainable it is to be constantly available.

Nothing fell apart while I was gone.

That alone told me everything I needed to know.

If you’re anything like me, you’re telling yourself you’ll take time off once things calm down. Once the project ends. Once the inbox is under control. But things don’t calm down on their own. Before you know it, you look back on the past two years and wonder where the time went.

We have to decide when enough is enough.

Maybe the most productive thing we can do is stop treating rest like a reward.