With the holiday season upon us, a lot of us are looking to take some well-earned time away from work. I’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, as is tradition for me. It’s a great opportunity to escape from work and projects to unload and relax. Well, if it’s possible to leave work at work. Some people, me included, have the habit of taking their work with them everywhere.

Thinking of taking a break gave me an idea for a subject to discuss, and that’s time management. Not time management in the traditional sense that you’ll hear from a motivational speaker, I mean in the sense of when to take time off. At Davison Design and Development, our teams work on a lot of projects. And as any inventor will discover, putting a lot of work into a project can cause your brain to tighten up. I think of it as an open hand and a closed fist.

When your hand is open, this represents the times when ideas flow freely from your mind and you can work on a project with relative ease. However, there will come a time when problems and various issues arise. Some of these issues are related to the project and some are the issues we bring from the outside world and carry on our shoulders. (I say outside world, InventionLand is where we work to avoid the negativity of the day-to-day hustle and bustle). As these issues compile, the open hand begins to close. Eventually it will close and ideas just don’t flow. You’ve hit a wall. If you keep working, you’re going to get nowhere and the fist will close tighter, making your knuckles white. It’s time to step back.

Walk away. It’s that easy. Do something else, but do not keep pounding on that project, because you’re going to go nowhere. This is something we discovered with our team of Inventionmen. We want to make sure that this talented group of men and women understand themselves enough to know when to step back.

In fact, we operate under a four day work week. I know it sounds strange, right? We do 200 product samples a month and the team works only four days a week. They work four days a week, because the three day weekend allows them to recharge and completely eliminate the thought of work so they are completely refreshed come Monday.

So, as an inventor, you’re going to have a lot of moments when you become that tight, unlockable fist. Know when to step away, take time off and come back fresh. It’s when you step away and come back that the best ideas hit you in some of the strangest places.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.