Almost one-third of Canadians (29 per cent) aren’t using their fully allotted vacation.  Things are worse south of the border.  About half of American workers have unused vacation time at the end of the year.

There are lots of reasons why people don’t take all of their vacation.  According to an Ipsos-Reid poll, many Canadians have trouble coping with stress during the vacation cycle (30%) or feel guilty about taking time off (28%).  (“The emails keep coming in and the work keeps building up.”)  Others just don’t get around to booking the time off.  And still others don’t want to deal with the backlog when they return so they check email frequently while on vacation.

At the risk of stating the obvious, vacations are critical.  Clearly, they serve our personal life well.  But they also improve our productivity.

A recent Air New Zealand study found that people experienced an immediate 82% improvement in performance and a lasting 25% improvement after a vacation.

Interestingly, mini-vacations (two or three days off) are not found to have the same stress-reduction benefits as vacations that last one and two weeks.

A very busy professional woman once told me that there would never be a perfect time to take a vacation. She simply advised me to book my vacation far in advance and find a way to make it work. This was such simple advice, but so wise at the same time.

Have you booked your summer vacation yet?