When I was working, especially full-time and moreso in my early working years, I did a lot more with my fewer days off than I did later in my full-time working years.
In the 1980s I was going to California for nearly 2 weeks, using up nearly all of my paid days off. This left me with very few paid days off for the rest of the year, days I used very carefully. Most of those remaining days I used for local weekend trips out of town to visit friends in the NYC metro area.
After five years of working, I got a third week of vacation but by then I had stopped going to California so now I had a lot more paid days off and less things to use them for compared to before. I began taking most of the last 2 weeks of the year off just to rest up and do whatever I liked without going out of town. With several company holidays in the last 2 weeks (Xmas and New Years), I did not have to save a lot of days in order to get lots of consecutive days off.
In 2000, I got a 4th week off and I began to take alternating Wednesdays off in the summer so I could avoid some hot days on the trains and break up the week into 2 two-day "mini-weeks" which was nice. I'd do errands that day to avoid the Saturday crowds, a preview of things to come. What I was realizing was that the more days off I had, the less of a reason I had to use them with great care.
In 2001, when I began working part-time, I had several weekdays off every week as I took a big step toward my ER. I still had some paid days (prorated) off but it was the days off, albeit unpaid, I had every week which mattered the most. It was very easy to get used to and I never want to go back to any arrangement I had before.