For the best use of your paid time off this year, I’m here to suggest that you take a day off on Jan. 8.

Because the holidays of Christmas, New Year’s, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day all fall on Mondays, if you take off on January 8, 2024, you’ll be giving yourself four Mondays off in a row. That’s a full month of four-day work weeks for the low price of one day of PTO.

More tips for maximizing your time off this holiday season

The Jan. 8 tip originally comes from lofispaceship on Reddit’s r/lifeprotips subreddit. Commenters quickly added other calendar hacks for the holidays, such as the following:

Take most of November off with only 8 days of PTO: Assuming you work a five day week and get Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and the day after Thanksgiving as vacation day, you can take eight days of paid time off and enjoy a full 17 days off in a row. The days to take off are Nov. 13-17 and Nov. 20-22. (Although not everyone gets Veteran’s Day off.)Plan for the holiday drought: For many workers, the time between MLK Day and Memorial Day is five months of holiday drought with no official holidays—although, if you’re lucky, you’ll get Monday, February 19, 2024 off for Presidents Day and/or a day around Easter. This is nearly half of the year, so keep this in mind when you’re planning out how to “spend” any accrued vacation time. The most important tip: Make sure you actually take your vacation days

The research on the importance of recharging your batteries by taking some “me time” is clear, and more and more companies are offering “unlimited PTO” to entice employees. This is great in theory—who doesn’t want as much time off as they need?—but in practice it tends to result in employees taking fewer days off. The average fixed PTO worker in the U.S. takes 15 vacation days per year, compared to 13 days for the average unlimited PTO employee. This is often because workers don’t want to appear lazy, but it’s actually better for your productivity to take time off, so self-advocate for your vacation time. Remember: Unlike fixed PTO, you won’t be reimbursed if you don’t take your days off.