Labor Day is the perfect time to re-evaluate your relationship with vacations.

Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin recently suggested that Labor Day, timed perfectly with the transition from summer to fall, is a natural time to examine our goals and objectives, as well as what we might want to change in our work lives.

Labor Day celebrates the contribution of workers to our country’s economic strength and prosperity. But it’s also an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with our own labor.

Do we maintain balance and harmony between work and non-work activities, uptime and downtime?

Among the many advancements realized during the Industrial Revolution, is the ideal of a culturally sanctioned respite from one’s labor. Industry leaders realized that workers could not maintain optimal productivity for long periods of time without a break. And since long-distance transportation was becoming economically feasible, the vacation was born.

(The supporting plot of Disney’s© recent film, Christopher Robin, illustrates this bit of history quite beautifully).

Vacations are just as important to today’s knowledge workers as they were to factory workers a century and a half ago. A large number of scientific studies support a strong, positive relationship between vacations and productivity, creativity and long-term well-being.

Based on history and science, the choice between vacations and productivity is clearly a false one. Vacations support, they don’t detract from, labor productivity.

So, where you going on your next guilt-free vacation?

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Vacationing Matters is dedicated to helping professionals plan and execute successful vacations that enhance long-term productivity and well-being.

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