Avoid burnout, take a break

attend funerals of his close relatives.

He was driven by his desire to fulfil his responsibility as the head of the family.
His other reasoning was that the more effort he put, the more he was likely to catch more fish.
He understood the principle that a bad fishing day is likely to be followed by a good one. No doubt about it, he was a living testimony of a person who had mastered the art of patience, persistence and perseverance. This immense ambition and effort came to a halt in November.

During that month, he started feeling extreme exhaustion and his level of efficiency declined with each passing day.
Despite this feeling, he soldiered on until he eventually collapsed while fishing. He was lucky to be rescued by some fishermen who noticed his floating body. His doctor advised him to take two weeks off to allow his body to recuperate and recover from the work-related stress.

He resumed fishing after three weeks and to his amazement his catches had improved significantly after taking a forced break.
Now he makes it a habit to take a few days rest even if the family bills are mounting. I also recall that immediately after getting married in 2002, I put on a lot of weight presumably because I was not used to getting consistent and well cooked meals during my bachelorhood.

My friend persuaded me to join aerobics at Body Fitness Centre. I attended all morning aerobic classes religiously from Monday to Saturday. I lost weight. However, after 10 months I started performing badly during the classes.
My aerobics tutor asked me to take a week off. After taking a break, I started performing well again.

We often ignore the need to rest because of the pressure that we find ourselves immersed in.
Sometimes we are behind our performance targets or we feel that we can not trust anybody enough to delegate certain responsibilities in our absence.
At times we get emotionally involved in certain tasks that we forget to put aside time for resting.

This is normally the disease affecting most entrepreneurs. There is no doubt that Tonderai was suffering from what could be referred to as burnout or diminishing returns to effort.

Conventional wisdom says that one can work on a project or exercise consistently but beyond a certain threshold the assumed benefits of the activities start to decline.

Exercising or training is recommended to keep fit, however, sportsmen need to occasionally take small breaks to enable the body to recuperate.
Signs of burnout can be extreme exhaustion, below performance; persistent headaches and forgetfulness (knock on levels of concentration).

Advantages of taking leave days
Human beings have limitations on how far they can be pushed, like any machine we all need time to rest.

Rest enables the body to regenerate itself, which can bring better results in the future. It is therefore compulsory for all people (employed or self-employed) to take at least 14 consecutive days annual leave days from work.
In most companies, staff members accrue leave days amounting to more than 21 days annually.

However, over the years staff members have been selling their leave days to their employer.
Research revealed that this practice is counter-productive. It has also been proven that productivity actually declines when people sell their leave days. It was observed that incidences of accidents rate and defect rate increase in staff that do not take leave days than in those that take leave days.

A case in point is the prevalence of higher accidents rate in drivers who do not take time off during Christmas holidays. On the other hand, research revealed that after employees take leave days they come back rejuvenated with new ideas, focus and renewed enthusiasm.
Taking leave has therapeutic effect of revitalising your body, which brings better results.

The issue of taking leave days is different across cultures. In Asia, the employees at times take time of work and organise packaged tours in other countries.
During this period they travel and observe what is happening in other commercial cities at the same time holiday-making.
The Japanese in particular perfected their total quality circles by observing what was happening in motor racing in America and applied the same principles to motor manufacturing.

These packaged tours enabled the Japanese to see things differently. However, they are able to copy and fuse best ideas from seemingly unrelated fields and adapt them to their workstations.

It is compulsory to take some time off from major work schedule to enjoy sport, religion and other entertainment activities, which have nothing to do with your work or are remotely connected to your occupation.
In some cases, employers uncover fraud, malpractices and other unethical practices during the time when the culprits are on leave.
Some employees do not take leave because they will be busy concealing their unscrupulous activities.