4 tips to make the most of your PTO

Many of us consider paid time off (PTO) a great perk of a job — but then struggle to use it when the opportunity rolls around. Perhaps you are leaving half of your vacation days on the table untouched, or maybe you are taking a holiday but spending half the time checking your email and Slack messages.

Considering the "average American worker with five years at the company gets 15 paid days of vacation in a year," said The Wall Street Journal, it can feel like there is a lot of pressure to spend the handful of days you do get off exactly right.

Read on for some tips on how to maximize your PTO so you can return to work actually feeling refreshed.

1. Plan your days off strategically

By getting a little strategic with which days you take off, you can end up making better use of your PTO.

The first tip here is that "a vacation day equals more than a day of vacation when you attach it to a public holiday or two," said the Journal. So, for example, if you took off just one day after New Year's this year, you would've gotten "a four-day weekend at the start of 2024."

Which day of the week you take off can also make a difference. As it turns out, "Fridays are overrated," said the Journal. Instead, opt "for a long weekend or a random personal day," since "there is evidence to suggest a Monday and Wednesday can be more satisfying."

Even more satisfying than that? Taking off a longer stretch of time. Science suggests that "to really recharge, you need at least one weeklong vacation, bracketed between two weekends," said the Journal.

2. Communicate — and delegate — clearly

To avoid getting dragged back into a work mindset when you are trying to unwind, it is critical to communicate clear boundaries to your colleagues (and boss) ahead of time, and to make sure you are passing off any work that someone else will need to handle while you are out. "Communicating your availability to clients and colleagues can help ease some of the stress associated with feeling like you constantly need to check email," said Forbes.

If a total disconnect from work is not possible, at least set some guidelines around when you will be available, so your entire calendar does not become a free-for-all. For this, said Forbes, you might "consider time-chunking or time-blocking," where you try to schedule calls you need to return "next to each other in blocks of time" or wait to respond to emails "all together in the same hour or so." Get it over with in one fell swoop and you will not be checking your laptop all day.

3. Ditch the guilt by remembering the benefits

If you are feeling bad about taking time off for the duration of your vacation, chances are good that you're not going to enjoy it very much.

What might help combat your guilt is the news that time off is actually good for your career. In fact, an Ernst & Young internal study "found that for every 10 hours of vacation an employee took, that worker's year-end performance ratings improved by 8%," said USA Today.

Time off is also good for your health — both mental and physical. In one company's experiment "with taking mandatory vacation time, there were clear increases in creativity, happiness (mood) and productivity," said Harvard Business Review. And "in a study of 749 women, researchers found that those who took vacation less than once every six years were eight times more likely to develop heart problems compared to those who went on vacation twice a year."

4. Avoid rushing back to work

Nothing can squash your vacation high quite like getting tossed back into an overflowing email inbox. To mitigate this, it may help to "give yourself an extra day before returning to work — by returning [home] Saturday instead of Sunday, let's say — to take care of errands like laundry," said CNBC.

Or, you could extend your vacation by one day so you're not returning to the office on the mad dash of a Monday. By taking off Monday, "your co-workers have no choice but to start the workweek without you," plus if you are "back Tuesday, you can quickly catch up on whatever emails or developments you missed," Jim Burch, a software engineer in Phoenix, said to the Journal.