We need a Break!

In this episode, Matt Brennan emphasizes the importance of taking a break during the Christmas season. He discusses the need for rest and reflection after a busy year, highlighting the mental health benefits of disconnecting from work. Matt encourages listeners to connect with family and friends, plan enjoyable activities, and embrace the holiday spirit without guilt. He stresses that work can wait and that taking time off is essential for a healthy work-life balance.

Takeaways

• Taking a break is essential for mental health.
• Christmas is a time to reset and reflect.
• Avoiding burnout is crucial for long-term productivity.
• Disconnecting from work during the holidays is important.
• Spending time with loved ones enhances the holiday experience.
• Planning fun activities can make the break more enjoyable.
• Work can wait; prioritize personal time.
• Embrace the holiday spirit without guilt.
• Time with family is precious and fleeting.
• Enjoy the little things during the holiday season.

Sound Bites
"Avoid the burnout."

Chapters
00:00 The Importance of Taking a Break
03:10 Connecting with Loved Ones During the Holidays
06:07 Embracing the Holiday Spirit and Resetting for the New Year

🎙️Website - WhattheRFI.com

🍏Apple Podcast - What the RFI?
🎧Spotify - What the RFI?
🎥YouTube - @WhatTheRFI

Transcript

0:00

We need a break. Christmas is here. It's time to hang up that coat, kick off those shoes, and enjoy that well-deserved break. Let's get into it. Welcome to What The RFI. I'm Matt Brennan and this is the podcast all about CA from the lens of an architect along with the project coordinator. So today, first off, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you and your family and everything. So we're going to talk about breaks during this episode. And it's a really important thing. It's something that really resonates to my soul that I just want to express to you guys and go over. So first off, why the break? Why is a break even required? Well, first of all, We've been working our butts off to this time, Christmas, you know, leading up to we've had, you know, not only just the work, but we've had the holiday parties and everything. And it's exhausting. It takes time. And you've probably got some major deadlines that you've been pushing out. A few tenders, you know, maybe you were launching tender in the new year. And you're just ready to go. Maybe the CA has been just nuts and it's been busy as well. You know, you need a break, right? And there's probably been a lot of overtime into this too. And that I think that's where again, you got to just stop and reflect and we're to get into that. So it's like I said, it's ultimately, it's a time to reset. It's a time to reevaluate the priorities and it's time to reflect. We'll get into this in the next episode about kind of, you know, planning for the new year ahead. But right now let's talk about the break. And to me, this is the one holiday that you can just chill out, hang out in your PJs all week and not feel shame, right? It's a week or two to basically connect with your family, connect with your friends, do a bit of shopping maybe, get some errands done around the house. Maybe you're into games, board games, whatever. Stay up late, watch those movies, relax and enjoy. If you achieve nothing, then great. I think that's a mission accomplished for this type of break, for the Christmas break. And that's my opinion. for it. And ultimately, you need this, you really do. Like I said, we kind of as we started into this episode, you've been working hard in that sense. And it's so important just to take the break, right? Take the break from, you know, from everything. It's important for your, even just the mental health side of things as well. Avoid the burnout. You've been working so hard and just take it off. I guess one thing too, it's been many years I've actually gotten sick during Christmas and I've had friends too. And I think that's just when your body just gives up at a point and lets you get sick during the holidays. Thankfully this year I'm not in that position, which is great, but there's been countless times because you've again, your body's just going, going, going. And then the moment it realized that it slows down, you get sick. So hopefully that's not in your case right now. And with it being this break, you know, this Christmas break, treat it as a vacation. Turn off those emails, disconnect from it, right? Don't get pinged, get off your phone, hide your phone in a drawer if you want, right? Turn off the notifications, create a schedule on your iPhone and stuff like that so you don't get bothered, know, turn off the LinkedIn things, whatever the case is, disconnect, right? Get away from that, focus on the family, focus on the friends and so on. And like, yeah, kind of leading to that segue. Connect with your friends, connect with your loved ones, go on adventures, know, plan a couple of trips, print off a calendar, print off the week, write it down. What do you want to do on this time? You've got this week. What do you want to do? The kids are off. Plan out some cool adventures, hit the ski slopes, go tobogganing, maybe go, you know, some skating. I'm sure there's lots of things around. You just got to look. And what if you don't take a break? That's a big question. One year. I was at one firm and they were really trying to push to get a lot of stuff done. other than, yes, Christmas and Boxing Day, but the rest of the week I was there. So yeah, wasn't a full on, you know, working through it. There was a little bit of time, but it was not a break. It was not time to reset. And ultimately it was miserable when you went back to work on the January 2nd moment. And at that point, You know, you didn't take the time off. Everyone else did. You saw it through their Facebook photos or Instagram and it just created some bitterness with it. And rather than being reset for the new year, you never took it. You never stopped for yourself and you're still going. And again, that burnout just carries with you. And that's why, you know, you need it. That's why you need that reset, right? If you don't take the time off, you don't reset. Ultimately, like I said, I'm being a broken record here, take the break, right? And time is short, you live once, just enjoy it. Ultimately, work can wait, it will wait, it will wait till the next year. And I think that's the one cool thing about the architectural industry is that it naturally just shuts down anyways. Almost all the firms do shut down during that Christmas break. And I see this on a you know, North America side of things with the company I work for part three, because again, we're supporting all architects all throughout North America, a lot are taking it off. They took it off last year, our support team was there, but they didn't need to really attend to anything because everyone naturally did. This is almost like an international holiday, I would like to call it at times. And that's really what it's about. So in summary, I really hope that you schedule the time off. And if not, Please do it for yourself. You need this. You do. Spend the time with your loved ones. Connect with them. The time is going to go. Especially if got little kids, time goes so fast. They grow up so quickly. They do. They really do. And treat yourself for this break. Do something that you wanted to do. If there was something, your bucket list, you can do it within a reason. Treat yourself. Enjoy. Have some extra treats under the... You know, the cookies, whatever that is. January's going to come and then we'll get kicked right back into it at the gym and we'll work that out. But enjoy, right? No shame being in your jammies the whole time. And ultimately, just Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you guys. I wish you the very best for you and the family this year. And next week, we're going to wrap up 2024 and discuss the plans for 2025. I'm very excited about that. But like I said, Take the break, enjoy it, and have an amazing Christmas. And last but not least, architects keep designing, other than after that break that we just talked about. And contractors keep making those drawings a reality. But again, in next year. We'll see you on the next one, guys.