Take a mental health day

This post comes to you on what for me is a holiday. I have the day off. Days like this remind me that it's good to get away from work. I don't do it very often (including on holidays). However, the only reason I'm able to sustain that is because I know when I need to take "mental health" days. Those are those few and far between days where your presense at the office won't be missed, so you just work half a day or you call in at the last minute to see if you can just take the day off.

I might do this a handful of times a year, but it's enough to sustain me. A half-day Wednesday is often more valuable to me than a three-day weekend. For some reason, a break from the routine puts me in a better mood, makes me more resilient to the daily issues that come up around the office, and can really help me focus. I suspect the mid-week days work better then weekend days because my weekends are often just as scheduled as my weekdays. So an ad hoc day off really is a day off.

If you don't do this already, try it some time.