I am at my most unproductive on the first day back from a four-day or five-day weekend. Like this yesterday, for example. We had Memorial Day off, of course. Because of that impending holiday, our office was given roughly half the day off on the preceding Friday. And as for me, I also had Tuesday off. Most people in my office use what's called a regular day off (RDO) schedule. Basically, I work nine-hour days most of the time, and in a two-week pay period that adds up to one day off every two weeks. I try to schedule dentists' appointments and stuff for that day, and shopping and errands I can't easily do after work, stuff like that. My RDO happened to fall on Monday, so what with the holiday I just moved it to the following day and prepared for a nice long, lazy, weekend.
The problem was when I came back on Wednesday. I wasn't literally at my most unproductive, but I was pretty close. I was tired; I had started getting used to weekend mornings. I had stuff from my RDO to catch up on, unlike the usual weekend. By the time I had got through e-mails, meeting invites, reading the notes of a meeting, etc., I was just about mentally prepared for lunch. In the end, I did get a little stuff done yesterday, but... waaaah.
I have a personal theory that time off from work is necessary to both relax (lose stress, eat well, catch up on sleep) and recharge (forget about the details of work, break up routines, think of new approaches to problems). A normal weekend, or even a three-day weekend with an RDO, offers just a little relaxation, just enough to keep me going like usual. A full week's vacation both relaxes me and recharges me. I come back from it ready to turn a fresh eye to projects that were stale and stuff.
The problem is, a four-day weekend relaxes me a lot... but doesn't recharge me. So I go back to work half asleep and without the vigor of actually having had a serious amount of time off.
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