This week I'm preparing to return to work as my sabbatical comes to an end. I can't wait to be back!

Every 3 years, 37signals offers its employees a six-week sabbatical. It's an opportunity to completely step away from work to slow down, reflect, recharge, recalibrate and simply live outside of work. And I mean, really step away. No checking email or Basecamp. No "quick questions" or updates. I turned off my work email account and uninstalled our apps. I'm completely away.

In the time since my last sabbatical (more like 4 years, nobody is perfect) I worked on 3 new products back-to-back-to-back: ONCE Campfire, Writebook, and Fizzy (the latest, shipping in November 2025). Building new products is my favorite thing to do and I've been extraordinarily blessed to have been able to focus exclusively on new things for the past few years. I even feel a little guilty having this much fun while my fellow designers have been working mostly on incremental improvements to Basecamp and HEY.

Brand new products offer an opportunity for a fresh start, a place to explore new ideas, and to stretch your abilities. Not beholden to legacy features, technology, or customers we were able to try explore many funny/strange/unique ideas. So many riffing session with Jason Fried started with, "I know this is will never work but... (yes so many times it did!) Jason is our founder and a generational product thinker. Few have the privilege to work with someone you can still learn from 16 years later, but that's probably a topic for another post. It's been also been fun to explore and use the most recent web platform features at a time when new features and browser support are coming quickly.

Building new products is incredibly rewarding, but it can be intense requiring weeks (or months) of high-focus, productive work so after shipping Fizzy it was time for a break. The intensity builds slowly and, like the proverbial frog in boiling water, my relationship with work, my own expectations and demands ramp-up as launch day approaches. The shipping deadline certainly has some effect on me but upon reflection this is mostly self-imposed. For one thing it's simply invigorating to will something into existence and, as another saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. There is always one more thing to polish, one more feature to sneak in.... just. one. more. thing... and it'll be perfect! Intrinsic motivation is a powerful force.

A sabbatical is a time to recalibrate and feel a slower pace. In my time at 37signals I have been fortunate to have taken several such sabbaticals. On some I've taken long trips, others I've undertaken ambitious projects, but I entered this wintertime break with no plan. I've spent a lot of time reading and drinking coffee slowly. Walking, hiking, and catching up on all the little fixes and cleaning around the house that have been stacking up. The kind of things that are too big for a weekend afternoon. I did some woodworking, building a missing element for my son's Montessori classroom wherein I learned enough Sketchup to model the construction (including some tricky rabbet cuts). It's a great way to work out the kinks before cutting real wood. And I didn't go completely technology free, building a new website for a side project with a healthy amount of Codex for the repetitive parts. But mostly I kept the routines of daily life including dropping off the kids at school, making dinner, and helping with homework. Except without the rush to get back upstairs to check messages or the mental overhead of still chewing on a problem from work.

For most people (Americans especially) the longest vacation they'll ever take from work is 7 days. Two weeks if their employer is generous. To get more than that, you have to quit and leave a gap between the old job and the new. Burned out? Same thing. So it may sound like an exquisite luxury for 37signals to offer such a benefit—and don't get me wrong it's one of our most adored perks—but it's a pretty good deal for the company, too. Replacing employees every 3-5 years because they're burned out is expensive and disruptive. Many of us have been at the company 10, 15, and a few approaching 20 years. That's unheard of in this generation, much less in a technology company. It's not just that employees stick around but every 3 years they get recharged then come back to work refreshed and full of ideas and creative energy. That's more than just retention, it's a power-up.

It's a great deal for everyone but it would be a shame to think of it simply as time to rest-up for more work. Sadly, this is the mindset for many us caught up in a world of pressure, productivity, and, well... more, More, MORE! We've got it wrong if we think of vacations (or even weekends) as a way to recharge for work. To put it another way, we shouldn't be resting so we can work. Work is necessary. Work is important. Meaningful even. Being effective at work matters. But we work so that we may rest. Rest is where the most important things live: families, friends, hobbies, play. The things that feed our souls. Fill yourself with those things and, somehow, you'll also be better at work.

Six weeks is the just the right amount of time, enough to fully decompress... and more. The first time in my career I took more than a week off I learned you don't even stop thinking about work for in the first week—maybe not even for 2–3 weeks! And six weeks is enough time to get excited again. I'm ready to go back. Excited to go back to work! Just one more chapter first...

Man Reading (Nicola d’Inverno) by John Singer Sargent, c. 1904