It is very easy to fall into the mindset that the only time that matters for our careers is the time spent in the office. As it turns out, our spare time and taking time away from our work is just as important towards our trajectory and productivity.

Not only can working too many hours have negative effects on your business, it can also have serious implications on your health, and if you're not able to attend work because of tiredness related sickness, then obviously you can't get anything done. They solution to business continuity starts with employees being able to complete their work, and looking after their health, both physical and mental, is vital for this. A recent study in Sweden where the weekly hours were dropped showed that sickness reduced due to this increased time off.

Taking time off is also important for social and personal reasons. It allows us to chase whatever interests us, from personal projects and development opportunities to vacations and day trips. This boosts our positivity and makes us happier, and happier people just work better. To further build on this positivity, we also have more time to spend with our families and friends. We are, by nature, social creatures, and spending time with other people is important for our mental health. By improving our work/life balance, we will look after our mental and physical health as well as our happiness.

When you do return to work, you'll find that you are a lot more productive. Taking time off allows you to reset your mind and to remove yourself from the chaos that is easy to lose yourself in during your time in the office. Taking a short break to refuel the engine, so to speak, is mutually beneficial for both your and your employer. Even “microbreaks” of sixty seconds or so can allow us refocus our minds when things become muddled.

If you don't take time off, although you may be functioning as a human, you will gradually wear yourself down with fatigue and tiredness and the build up of stress and the strain it puts you under will grind away at your motivation and so your productivity will slow.

It is important to approach work with a positive mindset, and one very effective way to achieve this is to ensure you are spending your time outside the office to the highest effect. Sometimes it pays to switch off your smart phone and to distant yourself from your emails so that you can put things into perspective. While the employees inside a business all work towards a common goal, like cogs in a machine, it is important to remember that we are all individual humans with individual needs, and we perform at our best when we are truly ourselves.

Statistics suggest that only about 77% of vacation days are actually used in the US and that this number is declining. Our time off is very important to succeeding in our careers, don't forget to use it and to use it well.

Certain professions require staff to work during antisocial hours, which comes with some obvious disadvantages, but also some hidden advantages.

The obvious problem is the effect on your personal body clock. As humans we are used to sleeping during the night and being active during the day, but to spin this on its head creates a few difficulties. First and foremost is knowing when to sleep. If you try to sleep during the day, there is a lot more noise outside and light that can disrupt your sleeping pattern. We require 7-8 hours of sleep to function properly, and it can be a strain to your body to adjust when you fit this in.

Alongside a potential lack of sleep, it has ramifications on your social life. Most people like to meet up after work in the evenings to go to a bar or a restaurant, and this is most likely the time you'll be sleeping or working, and your work schedule will most likely contradict that of your family which can create friction. You have to force yourself to eat on a regular schedule and enforce healthy traits which normally come naturally during the day.

Altering your sleep pattern can also come with health complications if you're not careful. Irregular heartbeats and cardiovascular complications are not uncommon for people on the night shift. There's also a security risk as you travel to and from work at times which can potentially have more crime and danger on the streets, and workplaces are more prone to break-ins during the night.

On the other side of the coin are a plethora of different benefits. Companies tend to pay more money for people working during the night as compensation for the antisocial hours. Also, by doing all of your work during the night, providing you have enough energy left, you then have all of the day to fill in with other activities. Some people go back into study as universities and colleges tend to be open when they're not working. Some people take up new hobbies, or focus on developing skills. There seems to be more time as you have already got the hard part of your day over with. Some people even fill in some of this time with a second job.

During the night there are less interruptions and workflow is more consistent. There are fewer meetings to attend, fewer urgent emails and fewer distractions which means productivity increases.

If you're working in quite a big business, then chances are that during the night there are less staff which means less competition for anybody looking for a promotion. It also means there's a chance to pick up twice as many responsibilities and develop new skills as there are less people to designate these out to.

There's also a decrease in traffic to and from the office. This can help you save some money on fuel and some time from your schedule.

It's difficult to balance everything out, particularly the strange social hours and people's reactions to this, however once you are familiar and settled into a schedule, working the night shift doesn't have to be as bad as it sounds.

More people are opting to start up their own business, and with the changes in consumer activity with the new millennial generation, it is a good time to open a small business to support your local economy and to make a living on your own terms. Diving into this water is no easy feat, and there are a lot of dangers to look out for.

Starting a business is very expensive, and often the property from which you run your business and the holdings kept within it's walls are your most valuable asset, particularly if you have been saving for a long time to begin your company. Therefore, it pays to have a decent security system in place to protect your business. It's also a good idea to take out some form of insurance against theft and damage. You may not have much money to afford such luxuries, but you will be very thankful you took out that insurance policy if anything were to happen. It is best to prepare for the worst case scenario.

Extreme weather can force a business to temporarily close due to a lack of customers being able to travel to the business or for safety reasons. Statistics show that 40% of small businesses fail to reopen after a fire or a flood. If your business is located in a disaster prone area, make sure you have a strategy for continuation if something were to happen.

Small businesses don't tend to have that many staff, and if too much of your business relies solely on one person, then if they become ill or decide to leave for whatever reason, it can have serious ramifications to your business. Make sure you do not depend too much on single employees.

Creating contracts for employees has become standard practice and is expected in most businesses, however a lot of small businesses don't have the time or the funding to properly proof read everything that they are signing and all of the terms and conditions and the potential legal ramifications it could have against the business. This can be a big risk further down the road with potential legal action taking large sums of money from your business. Paying a lawyer or an expert to thoroughly evaluate your contracts is a difficult and expensive decision to make, but in the long run it could save your business from going bust.

Much like relying on one employee, if you rely too heavily on one supplier, this can also be a huge risk. Make sure you have a dependable supply chain with alternatives in case of any emergencies to ensure continuity of your business.

There is a big threat of hacking, phishing and the compromising of data, and with the expansion of the internet, this is only going to increase. While costly, protecting yourself electronically and protecting your data can be as valuable or even more valuable than protecting your physical assets, depending on the business that you run.

When opening it is hard to know what you can shave costs on, however to ensure that your business survives the first and most difficult year, biting the bullet and preparing for a worst case scenario is often the best thing you can do.

The world is changing with new inventions, and at a time when almost everything can be achieved by the black mirror in your hands, it is important to know the effects that technology has on our lives and how best to optimise it. As humans we have always been a curious species, which has led us to exploration and has built the world as we know it today. Travelling, like everything else, is not unaffected by developments in technology. In some ways, it's even changing the ways that people think in regards to their vacations. With access to the internet and therefore access to unlimited information, the market has changed and adapted.

Travel agencies are having to fight with price comparison websites and a whole plethora of online content. While the business is still alive due to their in depth knowledge and unfathomable amount of experience, other businesses are starting to crumple.

When you go to book a hotel, you don't look up a list of hotels and call them up individually anymore - people tend to log on to Trivago or some form of comparison website which provides information such as vacancies, prices, maps and even suggestions on what to see in the cities. These websites, while providing customers, will take a share of the profit in order to exist, which some hotel owners are struggling to claw back.

Likewise, when one turns up in a new location, while they can ask the reception staff at the hostel or hotel for recommendations on attractions and restaurants, they can also ask Google, which will generate a list of everything worthwhile in the area, and rather a lot more. The way that it refines this infinite list down is on a ranking based system, rated by the customers in terms of their services and the experience they received. While this is effective, it's not entirely accurate as one customer's bad day can essentially run a business into the ground as people take these lists very seriously.

To get the restaurant you can book an uber or a taxi from your smartphone, instead of calling a local company through the hotel. When you're at the lookouts, you will take a photo on your smartphone and post it immediately on Instagram, instead of saving up all your camera film rolls and excitedly running to the developer to see the results a few weeks later. You can book your flight on your smartphone or tablet, check in on the same device as you travel to the airport, and then even have your boarding pass ready on your screen as you head straight for security, probably while trying to connect to the wifi systems in the airport to book your hotel and to decide what you want to see.

While this is fantastic news for the customer, who not only receives a large amount of useful information and tips while travelling but contributes towards them, it can be bad for businesses. It is important to adapt and change with technology to ensure the continuation of you business in such a competitive market. While transparency is a good thing, some people can take it too far and do everything possible to drive customers to your competitors.