This article originally appeared in the Financial Post.

The best vacations are the ones where you do not need to worry — about anything. Before you go, why not take a look at your investment portfolio? Here are five quick fixes for your investments, so that you might be able to enjoy your vacation a little more.

Dividend growth is far more important than dividend yield

Perhaps you have been lured into some high-yielding stocks over the past few years. You know high yields represent high risks, but you just couldn’t help yourself. You might still be surprised to learn that dividend growth stocks have almost always outperformed high-yielding stocks.

A company with a 1% dividend that grows is vastly superior, performance-wise, to a company with an 8% stable dividend. Don’t be afraid, then, to sell some of your high-yielding stocks to replace them with dividend growers. Or, buy some ishares S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index Fund (CDZ/TSX) ETFs.

Reduce your number of holdings

You know all about the benefits of diversification, but maybe you have taken it a little too far and now own 50, 75 or 100 different positions. Take the time before your vacation to trim your portfolio.

Do you need four different market ETFs when they hold mostly the same securities? Do you need nine different junior gold stocks?

Take the number of securities down to 20 to 30: that’s all you really need for proper diversification.

Get rid of your losers

Similar to the point above, you’ll enjoy your break more if you finally sell some of your losing investments. Sure, accepting a loss is hard, but do you really think that 10¢ resource stock is going to find the mother lode? 

No investor is perfect. You lost money. Accept it, sell and move on. Free up your capital for something better, or just buy a few more drinks on the beach, which will be way more fun than watching some of your losing investments go down, day after day.

Watch debt levels

Allied Nevada Gold Corp. (ANV/TSX) recently filed for bankruptcy protection. The problem: It had more than $500 million in debt against almost no cash flow, according to Bloomberg. A few years ago, Allied was a $3-billion company.

The lesson here is that investing in the stock market is tough enough, but adding debt to the equation just makes it tougher.

Take a look at your portfolio. Are any companies awash in debt? What is their interest expense compared with cash flow? How much trouble will they get into when there is a recession?

There are dozens of good companies out there with no debt, such as Corby Spirit and Wine Ltd. (CSW.A/TSX), which is sitting on $112 million in cash.

Why own companies that add to your risks by having too much debt?

Check your U.S. exposure

If your March break is being spent in the U.S., then you know the painful impact of currency movements since the Canadian dollar has been crushed over the past few years.

We never like to forecast currencies, but with U.S. interest rates set to rise, and Canadian interest rates set to continue to fall, it is fairly hard to create a bullish picture for the Canadian dollar.

As a result, you might want to make sure you have decent portfolio exposure to some U.S. stocks. Even though the U.S. market is flat so far in 2015, it is up more than 9% for Canadian investors, because of the decline in our dollar.

Currency diversification is often good for a portfolio, but it’s perhaps more important now with the U.S. economy being an island of strength in an ocean of slow growth worldwide.

These five portfolio quick fixes won’t guarantee success, but they might, at least, help you enjoy your vacation a little more.