How to Use Your Vacation Time

While most articles for young professionals provide tips for work, an all-too-often ignored aspect of work is not working at all. After graduating from college, working 40 to 60 hours a week is tough! When I graduated, I had two weeks to move before starting my job, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in a similar situation. It's only when you've worked for a few months that you realize how much free time you had in college. For most newly corporate types, two weeks a year and holidays are all the time we have to free ourselves from our cubedoms. We've all heard that Americans don't take as much vacation as the rest of the world; in fact, surveys report 35 percent of Americans don't even use all of their meager allotment!

As an American corporate worker, I was pretty used to my two weeks of paid vacation and eagerly awaited receiving more. After relocating to London, suddenly vacation took on new meaning with five weeks to use up. The fact that my U.S.-based manager has been working 15 years longer than me but still has less vacation makes me think a little more tactfully about how, when, and where I take time off. I've come up with a few tips that I think you can apply to your vacation scheduling to benefit yourself and your company.

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