Why taking 4 weeks off is a no-brainer (and pure math)

Finally, you can afford to spend up to 4 weeks per year without worrying about your presence at the business. You do not need to have a bad consciousness anymore when you take time off (whether you call it a small-scale sabbatical like seanwes does or time to travel and study the world like I prefer to do).

Step 1: Your calendar

Watch your calendar for a whole year.

What do you see? Obviously, 12 months with more or less 30 days. How many weeks are there per year? That is a bit harder. Ok, it is 52. That is it. You uncovered it already.

?

Yes, you really did. Let us connect the dots and do the math. If you hate math, scroll down and read the fast answer.

Step 2: Bringing months and weeks together

A month has 28–31 days. It varies from month to month, of course. If you assign each month a denominator that all 12 have in common, you choose 28 days (leaving aside the leap year).

Now, how many weeks (7 days) can you put into 28 days? Exactly 4.

That is it.

So, what do we know now? According to the calculation, a month consists of four weeks while each week has seven days. Our formula would look like that:

1 month = 4 weeks = 28 days

Step 3: Your new 4 weeks off with no worry!

Take the formula from step 2 and do the math for one year (12 months). Ok let us do it together:

12 x 1 month = 12 x 4 weeks = 12 x 28 days

The result:

12 months = 48 weeks = 336 days

Say hi to your new 48-weeks year and your worry-free 4 weeks off every year! :)

I know, for example in the United States, having 2 weeks off per year as an employee is common. As a business owner (with the liberty to assign as much time to work, sleep and leisure as you want) you can now have 4 weeks off and still run your business with no headache or worry that you should actually be working on your business.

Is that not a good reason to start your own thing and make a living from it? Plus, you get back your freedom of choice. But I do not want to get deeper into the benefits of being your own boss, maybe I will in the future.

A 48-weeks year without the math

You achieve the same result as above if you simply start thinking in weeks instead of months, meaning it is not January, February, March, etc. but calendar week 1, 2, 3 up to 48. The 4 weeks until 52 are your weeks off. If you have the freedom of choice of what to do when you want, the off-weeks you can take anytime not only at the end of the year, of course.

I find this approach reasonable and I prefer it, especially when you have a hard time pausing your work (as I do).

So, you are still a good business human. You are still working with targeted action. You are not leaving opportunities on the table. You are simply building a year that makes logical sense, and if you can explain something with logic to people, it will be a no-brainer for everyone.

From today on until you die your business year consists of 48 weeks. That is it! :)

PS: If you have a team of employees, and you want to make them stay with you at least forever, consider giving you and them 1 week off every 7 weeks, and 1 year off every 7 years, and pay them for that off-time. I know it sounds incredible but seanwes does that. Again, it is a topic for another time.

Originally published at Coastery.