Last Updated on August 18, 2026 by Bethany Wilinski
If you’ve read my blog or listened to my podcast, you already know that one of the things I say repeatedly is that there’s no one way to have a life-changing sabbatical. Each sabbatical looks different, because each of us needs something different from our sabbatical. At the same time, after working with dozens of clients to plan their sabbaticals, there are a few things I know are really important for creating a solid plan that supports the sabbatical you need at this moment in your career. Here are three steps you can take to start planning your sabbatical with purpose and intention.
Determine what you need from your sabbatical
This may sound really obvious but trust me when I say it’s not. You may think you know what you want to get out of your sabbatical because you’ve submitted a sabbatical application to your university, but in my experience, a sabbatical application is not the same as having a plan for your sabbatical. That’s because a sabbatical is not just about doing the next logical thing in your scholarly career. It would be a mistake to plan your sabbatical on autopilot, without reflecting on your professional and personal goals for your sabbatical and the next 3-5 years of your career. A sabbatical can be a time to advance your scholarship and start new work, but it can also be a time to finish projects in preparation of a pivot to a new research topic or a shift to administrative work. A sabbatical is also about what you need, personally. You may be exhausted and need to overcome burnout during sabbatical. Or you may be aware that your current work life is not sustainable, and you need to use your sabbatical time to craft a career that is sustainable.
Here are two examples of how identifying your sabbatical purpose and priorities can dramatically change your approach to sabbatical planning. One of my clients came to me when she was planning a pre-tenure sabbatical. When we met, she had assumed that she’d use her sabbatical to get as much research and writing done as possible, to prepare to go up for tenure. However, as we began to work together, she realized that she was quite burned out and couldn’t continue to work at her current pace. She also realized that she had some personal goals she wanted to pursue during her sabbatical. This client took the first month of her sabbatical completely off, which helped her feel less exhausted and overwhelmed. She also created a sabbatical plan that allowed her to take advantage of cultural and culinary opportunities in her city (something she doesn’t typically have time for but really enjoys) while also continuing to write for publication. The result? A balanced sabbatical plan that will allow her to make progress toward tenure while also allowing her to slow down and reignite her passion for her work.
Another client was planning a post-tenure sabbatical and was struggling to decide whether it was worth moving her family abroad for her sabbatical. She felt like going abroad to her research site was the next logical step, because this is the norm in her field of study. After reflection, however, she realized that her research interests and priorities had shifted since graduate school. While she still had interest in her international research agenda, she had been consistently moving toward a new research agenda that was better aligned with new interests that had emerged during her time at her current institution. Through our work together, she decided that it made more sense to pursue her current interest (which meant staying home for sabbatical) rather than struggle to take the sabbatical she thought she “should” take, which was really a holdover from her prior goals. What was exciting about her plan was that she didn’t give up the international agenda completely but found a new way to incorporate it into her sabbatical as a part of her agenda, and not the central focus.
Identify your current season
I’m presenting these a bit out of order, but if you want to identify your sabbatical purpose, you have to first be really clear about where you are right now, in your personal and professional life. It’s easy to cling to a version of your sabbatical that may have made sense when you were in grad school or before you had caregiving responsibilities. And sure, you could push that boulder uphill and make it work, but what I encourage my clients to do is to take a step back and be honest with themselves about where they are in their personal and professional life, and what opportunities and constraints that creates for their sabbatical.
This was definitely true for me when I started planning my sabbatical. I had this idea in my head that my sabbatical would be in Tanzania, and I’d spend a year there with my family working on a new project. The time would be perfect for strengthening existing relationships and building new ones. There were a few flaws in that logic. First, and this should have been a major red flag: I was planning to fund this sabbatical with a Fulbright, but that would mean I had to commit to a full year in Tanzania. My husband was able to work remotely for a semester, but a year would have been impossible. I didn’t want to be separated from my husband for 6 months during my sabbatical, but I allowed myself to ignore this really big red flag as I wrote and submitted my Fulbright application.
The second flaw in this plan was that by the time I reached my sabbatical, I was completely and utterly burned out. I’ve talked about this elsewhere, so I won’t repeat this story, but the bottom line was that I had convinced myself that I could take on an ambitious new project, which directly contradicted with my need to rest and overcome burnout. I also had so many projects already underway and loose ends to tie up; I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to start a brand new one!
If I had taken that sabbatical in Tanzania, I doubt I would be in the place I am now. I’m pretty sure I would have been just as exhausted at the end of my sabbatical as when it began, if not more exhausted. I’m glad I realized that taking the sabbatical I thought I “should” take wasn’t what I really wanted or needed. My family was not in a season where we could go away for a year (we did manage to go away for 5 months, though), and I was in a season where I needed to prioritize rest and finishing projects, not starting new ones.
So, I encourage you to think about your current season of life, and what that means for your sabbatical. You may be in a season where you have a lot of flexibility and want to have an adventure that sparks new ideas for your research. If you’re in a season like this, your sabbatical may involve travel, fostering new collaborations, and learning from others. You may be in a season where you’re already overwhelmed and exhausted, and you really need to rest and recover from burnout. A sabbatical in a season like this may entail keeping the framework of your life stable (e.g. not moving your family to new place!) and creating new routines that allow you to rest, pursue non-academic interests, and do just the bare minimum of work.
Set sabbatical goals, but make them realistic
I’m sure you’ve been in this situation before: you’re anticipating an upcoming break and you feel completely optimistic about ALL the work you’ll get done. Surely you can submit two articles and a grant during winter break, right? Oh, and finalize your spring syllabi. If you’re like me, all too often the end of the break comes and you’re filled with regret about what you didn’t get done, either because you underestimated the time it would take to accomplish your goals or life got in the way (or you just decided you deserved to actually have a vacation!).
One of the keys to a successful sabbatical is to have realistic goals. That often means having goals that are much smaller and more manageable than you’d be initially inclined to set. If you are just setting out to work on your sabbatical application, one way you can work to set realistic goals is to think about your goals thematically. Instead of making specific promises (e.g. I’ll conduct X analysis and submit to Y journal, I’ll submit a grant to [specific foundation] about [specific topic]), think about 2-3 larger buckets or themes for what you’ll work on. Here are a few examples of themes: 1) Make progress on existing projects (you could propose to work on analysis, initial drafts, ideation for a book proposal, etc.); 2) Build relationships with colleagues in my field (these may be new or existing, and can entail actual collaborative work during sabbatical or just laying the foundation for future collaborative work); 3) Identify new potential research directions (you don’t have to necessarily do this research during your sabbatical, but you may be reading, attending talks or conferences, and/or meeting with folks who do work you’re interested in possibly doing in the future). Once you identify a few themes for your sabbatical you will, of course, need to add more detail, but I encourage you to try to be only as specific as your institution requires, which gives you flexibility for your plans and ideas to shift and evolve over the course of your sabbatical (as they should!).
As you do this, I think it’s helpful to remember that spending your time productively during sabbatical does not always result in a tangible product. Remember, part of what a sabbatical affords is the time to read, think deeply, and play around with new ideas. Such work doesn’t necessarily translate into a publication or grant proposal, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. Resist the urge to only promise tangible products and remember to think more broadly about what can come out of your sabbatical. And, of course, while your institution probably doesn’t want to hear about it, remember that coming back from sabbatical feeling rested and rejuvenated is critical to your long-term scholarly success.
After you’ve identified your goals for your sabbatical, you want to ensure that you have enough time to complete the projects you’ve set out to accomplish. To do this, I suggest breaking those projects down into tasks and actually putting them on a calendar. I really like Cathy Mazak’s suggestions for breaking projects into tasks. As you put your projects on your calendar, don’t forget to add personal ones! Sabbatical is a great opportunity to make time for yourself, so I recommend planning to only work for part of each day (or work 3 days per week and take 2 off, for example) and leave some white space on your calendar for hobbies and personal pursuits.
After you’re done putting all your tasks on your calendar, take a step back and ask yourself if what you see is what you really desire for your sabbatical. Is there enough time for rest? Does it feel overly-booked or busy? If so, you’ll need to go back to your goals and pare them down.
Looking for more?
I hope you found these suggestions helpful and a good starting point for planning your sabbatical! If you’re looking for more support with getting really clear about your sabbatical priorities, check out my free download, the Sabbatical Clarity Toolkit!