Each gardening leave guide provides a definition of this type of time off work, also known as garden leave. Simply put, it’s a measure used by employers whose employees resigned from their job or had their employment terminated. During the notice period, the employee is supposed to abstain from work while still being on the payroll.
While the term is relatively new, it’s something that can happen to you during your professional career. Regardless of why you’re being put on gardening leave, it’s an excellent opportunity for you to catch up on many things you had to put on hold due to work obligations. So, what exactly can you do while on gardening leave? Keep on reading to find out!
Spend Time with Your Family and Friends
These days, having a professional career is a must. While many people struggle with finding the perfect work-life balance, some time off work, such as gardening leave, is an ideal opportunity to catch up with everyone.
Depending on the time of your leave, you can schedule a family holiday or a huge get-together with your loved ones. What’s more, you can visit your friends and attend some parties. Maintaining your social connections is extremely important, just like improving your relationship within the family circle. For some time, you won’t have to worry about work. Use this opportunity to get close to people who are important to you.
Work on Your Portfolio
If you’re on gardening leave, it likely means that you’re going to change jobs. However, if you don’t have a new workplace, you may want to look for one after your leave ends. Regardless of why you’re on gardening leave, you should still have lots of career opportunities.
For this reason, it’s important to create a portfolio showcasing your work, or update it, if you already have one. You can build a website, work on your professional social media platforms, create new accounts, or edit the content. The information you add should be relevant to your professional career. Don’t forget to make it look enticing, as it might attract your potential customers and employers.
While looking into your portfolio, this is a great time for reflection. When you look through your work, you’ll be able to see any gaps in your knowledge or things that you could improve.
Your leave time is a great opportunity to look into any further education courses that you might be interested in to boost your career. This could be your chance to pursue your degree in business studies to grab that managerial position or to get a Masters of Science in Nursing – Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner to champion men’s mental health needs. Your gardening leave is time to ponder, discover all of the opportunities that are out there for you, and grab hold of them.
Work out
Working full-time can be exhausting. As such, people tend to neglect their workout routines in favor of a more relaxing weekend. It’s easy to find excuses for the lack of physical activity. However, it’s even easier to find reasons to do it, as well as its benefits.
While you can get many jobs during your life, you only get to have one body. Now you have the time to take good care of it. Try to come up with a new workout schedule if you haven’t had one already. Experiment with sports, find the one you like the most and stick to it! Make working out a habit that you’ll carry on even when you change jobs and start a new career.
Spend Time Doing Your Hobbies
Now you can finally seize the opportunity and engage in activities you haven’t had time to do before. You can pick up a new hobby or participate in things you couldn’t spend much time on doing due to your regular work obligations. You can change that now!
Ultimately, you’re on gardening leave. If you have a garden, now’s the time to spend some time in it and make it more relaxing and beautiful than ever! You can do some cleaning and decluttering. If the time is right, you can think about planting new, seasonal flowers. Or, if you’re feeling more ambitious, you can even plan a garden remodel.
The sky’s the limit! With all that time on your hands, you can engage in things you want to do, not the ones you have to do. Seize that opportunity, and don’t forget to have fun!
Relax
If you’re on gardening leave because you’re supposed to change jobs sometime in the future, getting some rest before the craziness of daily work starts again is the best idea. You’ll receive a full salary, so take this time and just chill out!
Life these days is stressful and high-paced, so make sure you spend some time doing things just for yourself. Watch a movie you haven’t seen before, or read that long-forgotten book sitting on your nightstand for ages. Take a nap in the middle of the day if it makes you happy. You can also try to establish a healthy sleep pattern. People sometimes forget how important it is to unwind – make sure you don’t neglect it, either!
The Bottom Line
While gardening leave is a pit stop for your career, it’s also a great opportunity. You can still do many productive things and get some much-needed rest. Make sure you use that time to its fullest and be ready for all the new things waiting for you around the corner.
