Design systems promise 3 main things: efficiency, consistency, and innovation.

I always like to add a fourth: relief.

If your design system is working well, the work gets easier. You finish it faster. You start to see economies of scale.

But relief isn’t something that just happens. It’s there for the taking, but you have to actively choose it.

Here’s a scenario that happens often with design system teams I work with. After weeks or months of hard design system work, the team finally has the process down. They're shipping components. Their work is getting faster, and their work helps others to work faster too. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. They see a new moment where their work is finally getting lighter.

So, I suggest that this haggard team takes a week or two of vacation.

It’s a simple suggestion. More often than not, members of the team struggle with it.

Especially for those that have been working hard for weeks or months, they can’t bring themselves to stop. The best version is that all that hard work got them to this precipice, so it feels wrong to stop now. The worst version is that they’re soaking in bitter martyrdom that it’s all riding on them and a week out of the office will bring it all to a grinding halt. Most teams are somewhere in between.

Yes, the work you do is important. Yes, this relief is exactly what you’ve be working toward. Yes, it’ll be fine.

Take the week off. You’ve earned it.