Reboot Your Life: Energize Your Career and Life by Taking a Break

by Catherine Allen, Nancy Bearg, Rita Foley, Jaye Smith

Overview

More Americans are choosing to take time off from work to relax or re-examine their priorities, so they can return to work energized. Some companies offer formal sabbatical programs, but how can the average person take time off to evaluate their direction, explore their passions, and make time for the things that are really important?

Whether you're disillusioned with your career, yearning to follow a dream, or taking time out after a layoff, now is the time to step back and reboot. This book will show you how you can give yourself the best gift ever-—the gift of time. People who take sabbaticals report feeling happier, and they return to their jobs refreshed, reinvigorated, and ready to tackle new challenges.

Reboot Your Life draws upon the experiences of the four authors and their interview subjects: 200 people who have taken sabbaticals and 150 organizations offering sabbatical programs. The book includes real-life stories and exercises to help the reader figure out how to plan for and take a sabbatical, or how to use unexpected time off.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780825305658
Publisher:	Beaufort Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/02/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	223
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

The Sabbatical Sisters are four successful executives from diverse fields. After meeting, they discovered that they were all sabbatical veterans, and dubbed themselves the Sabbatical Sisters. They wanted to share the concept of rebooting your life with others, so they wrote a book. They hold retreats to help people plan and create support systems for taking a sabbatical.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 Giving Yourself the Gift of Time 1

Chapter 2 Types of Sabbaticals: The Why and What 23

Chapter 3 It's All in the Planning 41

Chapter 4 Funding Your Freedom 66

Chapter 5 Phases and Navigating the First Thirty Days 90

Chapter 6 The Heart of the Reboot Break: Reconnection and Exploration 103

Chapter 7 Renewed, Recharged, Now What? 125

Chapter 8 Deflecting Sabbatical Robbers 139

Chapter 9 "You're Taking a What?" Life with Someone on Sabbatical 151

Chapter 10 Living the Lifelong Sabbatical 167

Conclusion 182

Appendix

Planning Checklist 185

Funding Your Freedom 195

Organizations That Get It 197

Resources 202

Index 205

Acknowledgments 211

Our Sabbatical Stories 212

About the Authors 221

Editorial Reviews

These four executives, who dub themselves "the Sabbatical Sisters" and hold retreats to help people plan for "Reboot Breaks," offer a book that covers many varieties of taking time off: within jobs or between them, career enhancing, course correcting, family related, for emotional healing, volunteering, and pre-retirement. The authors lead readers through the four phases of a reboot: creating space, reconnecting, exploration, and reentry. The business case for sabbaticals is emphasized; workers are more productive after a break. How to fund a break if one's employer doesn't offer a formal sabbatical program is covered, as is how to have the best break possible and deal with the feelings of loved ones. The concept of a sabbatical is timely, both in light of the economic downturn and America's chronically stressed workforce (the Center for American Progress recently reported that Americans work longer hours, and have less support, than workers in any other developed nation). Ironically, the authors' collective voice comes across as bland, even timid. The book leans heavily on cheery case studies from the 200 break-takers interviewed and less on practical advice, a problem that could have been easily solved by beefing up the checklists and freeing them from the Appendix.
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