Flights: 8
Miles flown: 9,078
Destinations: Mauritius, London, Munich, Bath, Düsseldorf
Nights in a hotel: 14
Nights on a dancefloor: 4
Satisfaction rating: 9.1/10

I have returned to the treadmill. Endless stretches of indulgent, beach-fuelled luxury have been replaced by early mornings, late nights and unhealthy team-room snacking. The contrast should be unbearably depressing; I always expect a crushing sense of doom to hit me in the days and weeks after a blissful holiday break.

But it never seems to strike and this time is no different. Maintaining a ceaseless reservoir of boundless enthusiasm is, of course, one of the secrets to success as a constant business traveller. Those of a pill-popping, nervous disposition don't cope well with delayed flights, infuriating clients and the inevitable disappointment of loved ones once the idyllic sojourn is over.

I have always found it the height of indulgent immaturity to complain about a return to hard labour. Imagine how your colleagues feel? You've just spent a week on a beach and yet you're the one sniffing about how hard you have to work and what a frightful injustice that is. Imagine how the tired, beat-up regular tube commuter feels? If you don't enjoy your job – the jetsetting, intellectual stimulation, healthy pay packet and regular escapes – then no one will. So (in case you do) stop complaining and smell the coffee: your holiday was great and your work is but a thrilling privilege.

Averting the crushing sense of doom is clearly a trick of the mind, but there is one other helpful contributor: your "holiday strategy" (you'll forgive the use of business lingo, I'm sure). Any holiday strategy consists of three decisions. When should I go? How often should I go? And where should I go? The "when", it seems to me, is fairly irrelevant to a happy return to work. Some of us like to go when it's cold in the UK; others during school holidays; others when most of our colleagues are also away. Perhaps the last helps you overcome that sense of guilt over being away but it can, with a pessimist's attitude, still make you feel like a toyless kid on your return.

The "how often", though, I'm convinced is critical. It wasn't so long ago that we went on "long" holidays. Two, stretched-out weeks on the French Riviera midway through the year might be followed by two weeks at a Florida theme park at Christmas. This, it seems to your humble diarist, is a catastrophic error. Post-holiday blues are, even for the most avowed lover of their profession, a near certainty if the next one is a full six months away. In this era of accessible travel – BA has 11, yes 11, flights to New York every day – why would you use your hardearned 25 days of holiday in such wasteful fashion?

Take four week-long breaks (for example); use the bank holidays we are blessed with to head off for a long weekend; and spread your days off through the year to give your life a balanced work-rest-work-rest pattern. This is a critical part of your holiday strategy – and your family and friends will love you for it.

The "where" is an even more vexing issue for those who spend much of their lives at 35,000 feet or on foreign shores. I know countless colleagues who steer clear of flying – and sometimes even of countries other than their own – to escape the reality of their working lives. This is an understandable phenomenon and one for which you can't help feeling a morsel of sympathy: you can just about see how a train journey to Solihull may be a tempting change from a plane journey to Milan.

In my view however, it's a monumental error. Business travel – to fulfill an obligation – and personal travel – to satisfy a sense of curiosity and adventure – should not be conflated. Spending your weeks in the Ruhrgebiet doesn't make Rio, Hawaii, Antigua, Mumbai or Bangkok any less exciting. And allowing the conflation to affect your loved ones is unacceptable: foisting a British train on your kids may scar them for life.

So, I say, put aside your instinctive aversion to yet more travel and be adventurous. Go and do the Inca trail; spend a weekend eating, drinking and pretending to be glacially hip in New York; explore the ancient and modern wonders of Istanbul; lounge on a white sandy beach in the Maldives or on a black sandy beach in Kerala; exhaust yourself skiing in Whistler or Aspen; or drive for hours to reach a vineyard in Western Australia; and if you take the train, make it the Trans-Siberian. The options are endless. And variety is the key to getting both the "how often" and "where" questions right.

If you go on four, scintillating, thoroughly different holidays through a calendar year, each return to the treadmill will (I promise) be painless. You never know, with the next holiday a few months away and your team happy to see you return, it might even be a touch joyous.

Happy holidays to all of you. I'm back, as ever, in a fortnight.

Max Levene

• Max Levene is a management consultant, occasionally based in London