I take a week off every seventh week. I also pay my employees to take off every seventh week.

I call this Small Scale Sabbaticals.

I was working 18-hour days, seven days a week with no end in sight, and I was heading towards burn out. I knew some people took off a year every seven years as a "sabbatical" and I knew we took off a day every seven days each week, but why was there nothing in between?

I decided to try it and I decided to prioritize it with my team. I started doing it in 2014 and haven't look back. It's been incredible. We feel healthier every time, we feel rested, we're excited to get back to work, and I truly believe we are more productive as a whole. I certainly know we all do better work.

I've been sharing my journey of taking Small Scale Sabbaticals for some time now. You may be wondering how you could possibly do this yourself. Maybe you're thinking, "How could I possibly take off even a day—much less a whole week?!"

How can you take a sabbatical when you can't afford to?

The answer is: you'll never be able to afford to. That's right. You will never reach a moment in your life where you look at your schedule and the next week is just completely blank.

It won't happen because we fill time automatically by habit. The only way is to drive a wedge into your schedule and carve out the time.

In this episode, we talk about the money, the how, the scheduling, the potential guilt, and the practicalities of actually being able to take off time with something like a sabbatical.