Making the most out of a forced holiday

I have come across two types of #holidays

The first one I call vacation. #vacation is planned time away from work. This is time set aside for enjoyment with friends and family. During vacation I prefer to keep completely away from work, being available only for real emergencies, and I have never come across any real emergency while on vacation. Have you?

The second type is a set of forced holidays due to festivals or similar calendar events. I have absolutely no control on these holidays. As far as possible, I avoid travelling during these days. There are many who love to stand in long queues or get stuck in traffic jams, but I am not of that kind.

These holidays offer a perfect opportunity for introspection. I call them strategic breaks. In the course of routine work activities, there is hardly any time left for a long term perspective. Keeping away from the routine work, I take a look at my work as an outsider. Looking at it from a distance shows things that are not visible on a day to day basis.

During one such break earlier, me and my partners decided to focus on building expertise in machine learning. Over the few years, we implemented multiple solutions for our customers using machine learning that became a key driving force during our recent acquisition by Suma Soft.

Any suggestions on what I should do next week?