Is your summer vacation looming around the corner? Are you already daydreaming about that precious time to rest, relax (perhaps while sitting out on your deck chair enjoying the glorious sun), and taking a break from your stressful work life?
But could you imagine sipping a fruity drink with a tiny umbrella in a crystal clear water beach, only to receive an urgent call from work about an issue that you could have prevented by giving some indications the right person?
When you’re heading out of office, you want to know that business will go on without you, and preparing for vacation might be a bit stressful. You’re trying to finish up tasks, deliver projects, make sure everything will be on the right track while you’re away. Preparing to be out of the office can ensure you can actually enjoy your time off, and prevent you returning from vacation with more work and more stress than you could have had.
Here’s what you can do before jetting out of the office and into the sunshine, and how you can use Outplanr to make sure nothing falls through the cracks while you’re away:
Work ahead
First of all, if you know you’ll be out of the office for a week or two, work to get ahead of schedule. If there are tasks you can complete ahead of time because you already have all the information you need to complete them, get to work and get them done. Try to complete as much as possible before you leave.
In Outplanr:
- Check on your Work View the tasks (or add new ones) that absolutely must be done before you leave.
- You can even set tasks priority (low, normal or urgent) to help you determine which ones must be completed before your departure date and which ones can wait.
- Change the due date of tasks to before you leave to make sure you get them done.
Reassign tasks that are due while you’re out
Probably you won’t be able to finish all your tasks before you leave. Maybe there’s that report that cannot be done until a certain day because information is not available before that day or you’re in charge of posting weekly social media updates. You can reassign those tasks to the appropriate teammates so they’ll be responsible for them while you’re out.
In Outplanr:
- You can edit any task and assign it to a different teammember.
- Comment on the task to let your colleagues know any important details about it. You can also add files related to the task. This way they can carry on while you’re gone.
Establish responsibility
When you’re away from the office who is the go-to person to cover each of your responsibilities? Be clear about who’s leading the project or supervising your team. Be sure to brief the right people on what they need to do, and give them all necessary instructions on how to handle specific situations during your absence. Also, decide who gets your number and make sure you clearly define which issues warrant interrupting your trip.
In Outplanr:
- Book short meetings by creating an Event and adding any key coworkers as attendees to go over upcoming deadlines and projects that will be impacted by your vacation.
Let your colleagues know well in advance of your vacation plans
It’s important to give your coworkers plenty of notice about when you’re planning to be out of the office. Not only is it respectful, but that way if they need anything from you, it’s on them to reach out before you leave. They also might have to move around deadlines, take on added responsibilities or rearrange meetings, for instance.
In Outplanr:
- Add your vacations as an Event in Outplanr. For example, set its name as Jane’s Vacation⛱ (yes, you can even add a fun emoji), set the start date, and then set it as a repeating event and decide for how long it will repeat. The Event aka Vacation will appear on the Plan View and everyone will be able to see it. You can actually do this for all your teammates’ vacation, and the entire team will always know who will be out of office and when.
- You can create a Project (entitled Vacation Map 2019 🏖, for example) and associate all events (vacations) to it. Then click on the Project Details to get the list of all time-offs.
Look ahead at your calendar
Look at your calendar and see what’s happening a month after your vacation so you can anticipate things your teammates or your clients may need.
In Outplanr:
- Use the Plan View to get a calendar like view of your workweeks post-vacay.
Give notice to your clients
You can’t just spring a big vacation to your clients at the last minute. Let them know of your plans a week or two before you’re out of the office and unavailable. Send them an email or give them a call to let them know you’ll be gone, and ask if there’s anything they need before you leave. Let them know who will be handling your work while you’re away or if you’ll be available in some way during that time.
Set an auto-response email
Upon you return, the last thing you want is to open your inbox and get overwhelmed by a pile of following-up emails or have your colleagues tell you clients called the office trying to reach out to you with urgent questions and requests while you were out. Set your out of office message on your email and be sure to include the date of your return as well as who can be contacted for immediate needs. Your voicemail should have similar details as well to prevent any angry voice messages.
Snooze your notifications
If you know that you won’t be needed or you really don’t want to be bothered, be sure that you turn off alerts for your work email so that you don’t get stressed out unnecessarily. If there’re some messages you really need to get be sure to properly set those alerts. Remember you’ll get the biggest benefit from your vacation if you truly disconnect from work. So preferably no sneak peeking your inbox or quick texts just to check in.
Leave a clean space
Upon your return, it can be quite stressful to shuffle through unorganised papers to find something you need. So be sure to clean up your workspace before you leave and avoid this source of unnecessary pressure. The last thing you want is to come back to a messy desk.
Don’t lose that vacation state of mind
The week before you leave take some time to schedule future meetings or set timelines for your post-vacation goals. Try not to schedule meetings, calls and events for the day you return to the office. Set your return date on your out of the office email message for a day after you scheduled to go back to work, so you have time to reacclimate. You’ll be able to catch up with the team, check your inbox or solve any urgent matters.
Before you leave it can also be helpful to make a list for your return with the top priorities. Being well prepared for your return will help you reduce stress and anxiety and make you more focused on your first day back.
In Outplanr:
- You can add those tasks (like checking inbox and replying to emails, or a follow-up meeting with the team) in Outplanr and set how much time each one will take approximately. Then check your workday on the Plan View to make sure you’re not doing overtime and you’re day can go smoothly.
Pre-vacation planning is the key to make sure you enjoy a worry-free vacation, and you feel more at ease upon your return as well. A vacation should be a relaxing time away from your stressful work life.
And if by any change something comes up (hopefully you’ve prepared so well that it won’t) you can always access Outplanr App (available on iOS and Android).
Well, time to go on that well-deserved vacation now! Bon voyage! 😎
