How much savings did you have? I'm considering doing the same at some point, though my quick glance at index funds makes it seem like I'd get basically nothing. What sort of budget does this afford you?
I waited until I had 5-10x my annual expenses, but obviously you can do it with less. My main recommendation would to be have at least an extra 6 months of living expenses beyond what you need (so if you are taking a year off, have at least 1.5 yrs of living expenses) in case it takes a while to find work again. The main advantage of saving more than that is you can use the returns from your investments to offset some of your costs a bit.
I think made a great decision, but you ought to diversify your nest egg.
If there is some other asset class I am missing, let me know. In the meantime, I think I will take my chances with the market. Worst case, if things get bad, I can just go back to work (left my old company, in a fairly recession proof industry, on good terms)
I usually work a contract job for my University but I get my money in lump sums, so I was thinking I could put a sum into some sort of index fund, or even a currency fund.