How to Prepare for Summer Vacation So You Don’t Need Another When You Return

Are you dreaming of white sand beaches and beautiful views? For many leaders, the thought of leaving their company behind for a relaxing vacation is in itself stressful. They worry things will fall apart in their absence, and even if they don’t, they spend half their vacation obsessively checking their email and waiting for the phone to ring.

You shouldn’t spend your vacation worrying about work, but the last thing you want is to return to a tripled workload. The good news is that you don’t have to.

If you prepare correctly, your business can run smoothly in your absence, and you can actually enjoy a revitalizing vacation. Here’s how to make it work.

Before You Leave

As soon as you schedule your trip, start preparing for your absence. Proper planning is key to making your time off worthwhile.

1. Finish key projects. If you’re working on a big project, get it wrapped up before you go. You don’t want to leave others to finish what you started without the experience and knowledge you gained throughout the process.

2. Anticipate day-to-day tasks. Plan for the odds and ends that you deal with regularly, such as payroll and billing. Clear your calendar for the days you’ll be gone, and ask a few folks to step in on the inbound requests that typically come your way.

3. Create or update process documents. If you’re heavily concerned about who will deal with the problems that eat up most of your time, that’s a sign that you haven’t organized your business in a way that embraces documented processes. That can make vacation time understandably scary.

If you have some time before you go, take steps to get your process documents in order. All these documents should be publicly shared, easy to edit, and searchable. This ensures everyone knows how to handle the important day-to-day tasks and will actually reference the documents when they have questions.

4. Start cross-training employees. If your presence is currently essential for daily tasks, start coaching someone else to cover you so you don’t come back to a week’s worth of problems.

In fact, it’s best if at least two people on your team can perform every role so everyone else can use vacation time when they need it. Remember: Regular breaks are essential for preventing burnout and keeping your team healthy and motivated.

While You’re Gone

Vacation is a time to get away, clear your mind, relax, have fun, and spend time with people you love. That’s all you should be focusing on.

The best way to distance yourself from work while you’re away is to unplug. Delete key apps from your phone that you use regularly during the workday, and leave your laptop behind. This physically prevents you from having the tools for your job available, so even if you’re tempted to work, you won’t be able to.

To keep your vacation as interruption-free as possible, give your phone number to key staff, and make sure they know only to contact you in the event of an emergency. (You might even want to clarify what constitutes an emergency and what does not.) This will force your staff to problem solve while you are away, which will instill confidence in them that they can handle the important things without you.

When You Return

If you’ve prepared well, you won’t have to spend much time playing catch-up when you return. Things should be running smoothly so you can jump back in without a hitch.

On your first day back at work, allow plenty of time to take stock of what’s happened and gather information about what you missed while you were gone. It’s OK to ease back into office life with some time spent catching up and refocusing.

Team chat tools like P2 for WordPress or Slack make it easy to manage internal communication logs and catch up on what you’ve missed. Or, you can simply talk to the people who covered for you and let them fill you in. Once you have a good handle on things, you can jump right into your most important tasks for the day.

Whatever you do, don’t waste your vacation tethered to your inbox or thinking about all the things that could go wrong. Make the most of your time off: Try something new, read by the water, and focus on your family. There’s no guarantee that your kids won’t whine or that you won’t get sunburned, but if you prepare properly before you leave town, you won’t have to spend your vacation stressing over work.

Photo Credit: Express Monorail