I just quit my job every few years for a 6 - 12 months. The only reason I work is to save money so I can be free for a year to pursue my hobbies, art, literature, education, friendships, recharge my mental health, physical body, and explore the wonders of life without my energy being sucked away half the day by meaningless work.

I'd be a husk of personality if I didn't have this time to think slowly about life with full mental clarity. There was a month where I would wake up daily and go for an extremely long walk or bike ride and just sit next to the river for hours. Some of my best thoughts and ideas came from doing this. There was no work drama or deadlines ruining this thinking process.

Just want to offer a counterpoint. I took a sabbatical last year after working continuously for nearly nine. I felt I had it, I deserved a break. I just wanted to quit and see what happens. First few weeks were great. I travelled a bit, worked on my personal website, wrote a lot of articles, but gradually I sunk into this loop of doing-nothingness. I started playing video games all day, or surfing the internet. For some people this might not be an issue, but as a person who has always thrived on challenging and creative work, malaise started hitting me very soon.

Despite having all the time in the world, my creative spirit sunk to an all time low. All the wonderful things I had planned were not happening.

I do think it was a great learning experience, but I want to offer some advice. If you're going to take one, here are a few things you should do:

1. Think of at least one major thing you would want to work on. This could be travelling, photography or your side-project. It could just be watching movies, too. I think humans like having a routine and have at least one thing to dedicate themselves to.

2. Don't plan too many things. I wanted to get fit, learn to draw, write, read and in the end, I quickly ended up doing nothing.

3. I think we tend to chalk up lot of mental health issues to our work. I don't deny this could be a possibility, but if your work isn't insanely demanding, you don't need to quit your job to fix those issues.

4. If you're planning to work on your project, you need to ask yourself why you can't do it now. Even with most demanding jobs, dedicating some time to a side pursuit isn't a hard ask.

I do plan to take another one, but instead of quitting when I am frustrated as hell, I will do it when my creative spirit is high, and I am feeling more positive about my life.

One software company I worked had a benefit that, in your sixth year, you could take a paid sabbatical. IIRC, it was a month, which was still a nice break, but you probably aren't going to have time to write a novel.

I heard of people using that sabbatical to pick up consulting work. (This was before FAANG salaries, so even top engineers and managers might need the extra money, such as for kids' college, more than they need to travel or take up watercolor painting.)

Professor friends who've done sabbatical, it's much longer than a month, and seems to be a change of working scene. There's no teaching load from their university, but expectations that they'll be doing research/writing of some kind. They might do it while visiting a different university.

Regarding the class equity the article mentioned, a paid contiguous month off might be something a company could swing for all employees, as acknowledgement and incentive to stay 5+ years. A paid few or more months off would be a different matter to do.

I'm on a work break now. At the moment I have two thoughts about it. Sabbaticals are like a nuclear option for recovery, and I feel like never should have let my self get to that point that I feel like I needed one. When I return I should find some kind of better balance.

Another part of me feels work will always suck and I should figure out how to not work for as long as possible, using corporate jobs to fund long breaks. I heard this described at an anti-sabbatical.

I started a paid six month sabbatical in December 2019. It worked out a bit different to what I expected, for all of the obvious reasons, but was still very good.

I followed some advice from my collection of personal and professional mentors, which brutally summarised were:

- Focus on family and friends (work had consumed much of my attention for 8 years so this was very positive for my relationships)

- Do (bad) art, write, draw, make music, paint etc to both have fun and to enable brain plasticity

- Ask myself some questions before the sabbatical about my priorities in life, love and work, write them down and then seal the envelope and not think about them until I opened it at the end of the sabbatical

- Work on my health

- Complete a couple of personal projects

I am a much happier, well-rounded professional as a result achieving much more impact in more complex environments than ever before, and I have quadrupled my TC in the three years afterwards while decreasing my workload.

Being away was also fairly useful for my direct reports' growth, I think.

At home, things went from good to great too. Partner happy, pets happy, friends happy, me happy.

I feel incredibly fortunate that the sabbatical (and everything else that enabled it, and surrounded such a kind and generous offer from my management) took place.

I took what was supposed to be a year in 2016. I came back after like 9 months.

I wish it was all "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately", but in earnest I was going through a bit of a rough patch and felt like I needed more time for hobbies and projects. I felt like I was drowning in duties and obligations and had no time for anything I wanted to do.

I had a bunch of stuff planned, didn't do any of them, but came back a different person with new and healthy perspectives on life. I don't think more time was what I needed at the time, but that is a hard notion to challenge if you're working a full time job. I actually had plenty of time for what I needed, which was to improve my balance in life. Have more hobbies that weren't all screen-based, to hang out with people that weren't all socially awkward engineer types.

I realize this is a bit of a luxury, but if you need it and can afford it, I would recommend taking an extended break. It's difficult to have true opinions about life if you haven't actually lived it. You can read about it all your life, but it's nothing like that.

My work offers a 6 week sabbatical every 5 years. I've had 3 sabbaticals. I've spent all of them working on projects around the house that my wife has dreamed up. I spend most of the sabbatical looking forward to going back to work where I can get some rest and relaxation.

"Our 50 interviewees worked in a variety of private, public, and non-profit organizations from diverse sectors including consulting, design, finance, medicine, education, and technology..."

Honestly, Blue collar workers need a sabbatical just as badly and you will NEVER see this occur outside of some exceptional anectdote which I'm sure will be mentioned in a reply to this post.

I've got one of these scheduled. I'm going to quit my job in August, and focus on my own projects, as well as the mentioned rekindling connections. A mix of practical (engineering/electronics) projects, and more out-there things like computational chemistry simulations.

For my life journey, these sabbaticals were transformative. I had several tough. I love the definition by Paul Millerd, "mini-retirement." Instead of waiting for your retirement in the sixties, take more minor once along. I wrote more about how it shaped me in "Finding My Pathless Path" at https://www.sspaeti.com/blog/finding-my-pathless-path/.

I took a year long sabbatical during COVID (been back working for a year) and the taste of freedom has made me really not want to work anymore.

Its great if you want to leave your job. Spend a few months looking for a new role then go back to the old company if you can't find anything better.

How long is the average sabbatical?

Unfortunately, the research paper is paywalled, and I can't find a preprint.