I am a business coach. One of my main tasks is to explain to people that they cannot consistently put into an average day more than 10 hours quality work.

And yet, even I do not listen to myself. Over the past few months, I have been running around madly, mentoring clients, mainly in the Jerusalem region. About a week ago, I found myself entering a session stressed, and then finding the client yet more ‘challenging’. I did not perform well. I was burnt out. So what to do in such a situation?

1) Go on holiday! Not just a break for a day, but a proper holiday. That means you are required to move away from your familiar surroundings for at least a week. If cars need engines returning and computer batteries need recharging, our bodies also require a full top up.

2) Get some sleep! Many of us push ourselves to manage on less sleep, me included. Poor sleeping habits are associated with a variety of health disorders. If nothing else, you think less clearly and concentrate less effectively at meetings. Holidays are a chance to slow down.

3) Do NOT pick up any of those self-help managerial books that you often see displayed en masse at airports and train stations. Yes, they are all useful, helpful in specific ways. And I admit that I have invested over the years. However, I would suggest that few have been written by those who have to run and to manage and to cope with the issues of commercial businesses.

The clue to this insight was when I found myself looking at the collection on offer in London this week. The premier offering was “What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School” by Mark McCormack. This book was written in the 1980s – pre email, pre smartphone, pre blogs. The key message of the book? Listen very carefully to what people are saying, learn, absorb, and then ‘just do it’.

And that is what a holiday will help you to internalise.

My best wishes to all my readers……….as I pen this from a centuries-old ploughmens’ cottage near Banff in northern Scotland.