It's funny how when you're on the plane back to Manila after an eight-day vacation your mind suddenly kicks in to WORK MODE. And at 1030pm for that matter.

Yes, I'm back again. The vacation did me a world of good as my body clock finally reset itself. Not only that, my whole mindset finally got the reboot it so badly needed after more than three years of not taking a vacation.

Which brings me to the importance of having one in the first place. There is a reason why companies give us vacation leave. If someone brags about not taking a single vacation leave the whole year it only means one thing -- this person has been working too hard. This could lead to an overworked person. Which can also possibly lead to the person becoming an inefficient worker. We wouldn't want that now, would we?

So, plan to have a week-long vacation once a year. Don't count the Christmas/New Year holidays though. Goodness knows how many non-working holidays we have during that time in this country. What a former officemate (from I/ACT) did was every beginning of the year he would immediately file his leave for April. One whole week. Like clockwork. He plans out where he'll be but not go into detail on what he'll do during that vacation. I could see this is good practice since my supervisors can also take my vacation into their project planning well ahead of time.

So go ahead! Take that vacation. It will make everyone a lot happier in the long run. :)