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In three weeks’, time, I'll have finished sab 5.0, which means in the last six or seven years I’ll have spent more than 30 weeks ‘on a sabbatical’.

I now feel like (at least in order of time) that I’m some form of an expert in this format and able to pass on some small degree of wisdom to anyone who may be interested in following in the footsteps.

And so, a few rules to understand before we start the full explanation and discussion.

1) I call it a sabbatical because it sounded cool, it's not really a sabbatical; that's a learning experience from university where you often have six months off, but you can give me some freedom of speech here, I guess.

They think they can't, but they can. You just have to want to, and it can happen.

3) It's only a matter of saving up a relatively small amount of money, and you will be away.

4) It's not a holiday as you understand a holiday.

5) It is ordinary, not utterly exceptional.

6) Once you’ve done it once you will, almost certainly, want to or definitely do it again.

And so, sab 1.0 was a little bit about exploring what would happen if I went away from work for six weeks and then came back to see if it was still there.

I lived in a world of security and safety then where I could really just have stopped work at the age of something like 45 and pottered around until I died.

I didn't want to do that, but I wanted to make sure I didn't want to.

In the first sab which was an entire digital bleaching episode where I left my phone and my laptop at work, was an extraordinary way of connecting back with myself to see what I really wanted.

Following on from that, I had sab 2, 3 & 4, similar lengths of time, but not digital whitewashes.

Sab 2 was the year after sab 1, so 17/18, and it was the last one I had before we went to open the practice.

I spent the following two sabs helping to design the practice and then getting it open.

In the second one I worked too much and to a structured programme and didn't feel like I’d had the time to disconnect and reassess.

And then the sabs after that were almost like vegetative recovery.

This one has been entirely different, slightly longer this time, edging towards seven weeks from about the 20th of December until the 6th of February and at the stage of writing this I've got less than three weeks left.

The first thing that happens in these things is that you have to just unplug and disconnect.

For me and for the time that it designed meant you get an extended two-week holiday over Christmas, which just feels like a Christmas holiday.

You're with your family, you’re with your friends, everybody's off work.

It really begins at the start of January, when everyone else goes back to the routine and you don't but you have to get over the fact that you feel guilty about ‘not achieving the things you want to achieve’.

It's okay to be lazy, it's okay to create a vacuum and to create the space to think about what comes next, and for me, that's what these weeks are all about. 

Today, as an example, I met with Hailey for about 2.5 hours. We've done that twice already, and we'll do it twice more.

We're getting through creative work about what to do next with the business, the like of which I think we would be unable to do in normal circumstances.

I'm relatively unburdened by my concern for patients and complications that happen, particularly to my patients, and to be free of that creates space in my head to do other things. 

I'm taking my son to school and picking him up most days, and I'm trying to help as much as I can with Alison around the house and connecting with my daughters, who are at university.

I feel closer to my family than I have for ages and ages just because I've spent quality time with them.

I do though have an enormous to-do list that I spent some time writing down a couple of weeks ago, things that I would like to achieve before I've finished this both in terms of work-related projects which I would never get to do, which interest me, but also things to fix here or jobs to do, fitness to achieve, or at least to try and maintain, friends to meet, films to see and other things to do.

Last night, though, Alison went to the Lewis Capaldi concert with Grace and Rosie and Callum and I had the opportunity to have a sneaky Five Guys and some rubbish from the Co-op.

We lit a fire, sat with the dogs and watched Thor: Love and Thunder.

I don't want to do that every night of the week (sometimes when I'm tired my body tells me I do) but to do it every so often, to have a wonderful treat like that is one of the joys of what is happening here.

I'm really at risk now of a huge dose of contentment breaking out and becoming infected by an overwhelming sense of deep happiness.

Let's hope that doesn't happen, because I'm back to the madness of the sprint, plus the marathon in less than three weeks from now but when I get back, I will be ready to go again and excited about the future and the challenges that lie ahead.

That's what you get if you try this.

All you have to do is save up a twelfth of your money so that you have a month's worth of money.

Maybe it will take you two years, but you can have it.

Then make representation to the people you work for (or yourself If you work for yourself).

Understand that no one is dispensable and that you can have the time away and if the business that you're working for won't let you then think about changing your business to go somewhere that will and then take the time, disconnect and go back 4,5,6 weeks later and see how different you actually are, how much better you actually are.

Blog Post Number - 3329