Planning to be away? How to achieve a stress-free vacation from your business and work

If you’ve ever had the thought:

“It’s too much work to take vacation, so I’m not going to bother,” then you need to read this.

How can we prepare to be absent from work or business without it causing too much stress so it negates the positive effects that time away can bring?

It’s about planning ahead and creating processes for the things you regularly do so they are more easily teachable and repeatable by others.

The more planning you do, the less stress going away will be.

1. Consider the Day-to-Day things that you do.

   1. What can be automated?

   2. What processes do you engage in that others can do?

   3. Where are these written and how can you easily impart this information so your team feels relatively prepared when you’re away? Again - this is where the planning comes in!

2. Consider what projects, initiatives, client quotes and proposals, maintenance or construction milestones may come up while you’re away.

   1. What can you plan around your vacation?

   2. What information does your team need when that client you’ve been waiting for finally calls and wants to move ahead with their project? Could you even reach out to them before you go, to check in?

   3. What can hold and what needs to move forward?

3. What emergency or important scenarios may come up?

   1. What types of situations can your team handle on their own and what resources do they need access to?

   2. What types of situations warrant a call or text to you? Eg. What’s the best way to reach you so you don’t have to be checking email frequently and can really unplug. Perhaps a text catches your attention vs. email (The idea is that this is a very short list of situations that can’t wait for your return).

And if you run a business, even if it’s only you - what systems can you set up for yourself so you can step away? Make use of all your automations from having a very clear and descriptive out of office email, to automating your marketing posts.

Reach out to clients to let them know you’ll be away or schedule their appointments around your away dates.

And, if you deal with emergency situations with your clients, can you have a colleague in the industry back you up? And you can do the same for them?

Your future creative, productive, rested and fun end-of-vacation-self with thank you for this planning and preparation you’ve done.

NOW is YOUR time…to get planning!

Ariana