If you have a full-time job and also do side work, I found that it can be very helpful to have a few days off to fully focus on your side job. Additionally, you get a break from your 9–5, which for some, or actually most people, can be an awesome time in itself, even if it meant spending a week at home doing nothing and not going anywhere.

So for me, it’s worth taking at least a few days off from work to work on something else when I have a very clear goal and a list of things that I want to accomplish. If it’s just for the sake of having more free time and doing ‘something’ without defining what that something is, then I don’t think it’s worth wasting my precious vacation days.