+24 Rules for Work-Life Balance This article appears as the feature story in the fall 2017 issue of Smith Business magazine (PDF). Americans excel at many things. Vacationing isn't one of them. Year after year, labor surveys reveal that millions of U.S. workers fail to take their allotted time off. A study from the U.S. Travel Association shows that 54 percent of Americans ended 2016 with unused vacation days.