Why we need to take more time off from work

I happened upon an article by Simon Cohen, founder of Global Tolerance, which intrigued me.

It was titled: “Why I put my company on a year-long sabbatical.”

On April 1, 2013, the entire company shut down for a full year. Cohen’s team used the time to recharge, freelance (and learn how to run their own businesses), travel, explore or follow passions.

Cohen’s reasoning?

Employees would come back even better.

He goes on to say:

“The very idea of a sabbatical, a rest from work, comes from the biblical sabbath, and a commandment to stop working the fields every seven years. This is so Mother Nature can renew the fields and help ensure the possibility of future harvests. Businesses have long reaped rewards from biomimicry, the imitation of natural systems to solve human problems. If the flight of pigeons can inspire the first aircraft; termites can provide lessons for energy-efficient buildings; and butterfly wings can influence next-generation phone displays, why shouldn’t we cultivate the idea of fallow fields for our office lives?”