De-stress Your Vacation Preparation

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Paid time off is a prized benefit that employees negotiate for. Sadly, many people don’t utilize this benefit once they have it. A 2017 survey from ADP found that only one in three employees take 100% of their vacation time and Canadians spend 11.4 extra hours preparing to take leave. And recent research from Wrike found that 79% of workers are more stressed before taking a vacation. Why? 

We are aware that time away from work is good for us. But preparing to disconnect and reconnect from work is in itself, more work.

If you’re like me, and part of the camp that needs to prepare before taking time away, I wanted to share my extended vacation prep checklist, with the hope that it will help you plan a less rushed, less stressed leave and return, giving you the most mileage from your vacation! 

Planning

  • Prep early. Take some time early on in the year, to project your annual and quarterly priorities. When and what amount of time makes the most sense given the type of work you do, the industry you’re in, the seasonality of your work and the interdependencies on others? The more clarity you can create about your calendar, the better position you'll be in when vacation time comes.

  • As soon as you know your vacation dates, block the dates in your calendar. While you’re at it, schedule off the last day of work and first-day return. This time buffer helps ensure sufficient time to offboard from your work, and time to onboard again. Rushing back to a work routine can eliminate the "rest and recharge" benefits you got from your vacation faster than your vacation itself!

  • Overcommunicate with your team, vendors, clients etc. Ensure your workgroups are aware of your departure, and that you've designed in coverage of your work.

My “offboard” checklist includes:

  • Create a checklist document of every project, to-do needing to be put on hold, reassigned and/or completed prior to signing off.

  • Make work back schedule of priorities. Design a plan to assist completion ahead of time.

  • Update calendar with vacation dates. Invite others to these dates to ensure overcommunication.

  • Assign an "in-case-of emergency" contact who can text/call in case of a true emergency

  • Set out of office email and voicemail. Ensure it has my return date and any instructions on whom to contact and/or when I will return emails.

  • Set notifications for Slack to vacation dates to remind others that you’re offline.

  • Create, update, share and review process/checklist documents with any involved workgroups.

  • Turn off notifications to email, voicemail, slack and any other communication that is work-related (including your work calendar!)

The Day Before Leaving: 

  • Create an intention for your time off. What’s the purpose? What do you want to concentrate on most during your vacation? Relaxation? Creating memories with friends or family? An adventure? Learning something new? Anchoring to your intent can make your time off even more fulfilling and meaningful.

  • Ease the transitioning from work-mode to vacation-mode. I add a day or a half a day of “staycation” before and after an actual trip, giving me time to tie up loose ends like running errands and getting the house ready for a housesitter. It also helps to have a more pleasant, less stressful, travel day, if you’ve created a relaxed state heading into it. When jetlag will be involved, and my final destination is far from the arrival airport, I splurge on hotel overnights on arrival, and departure, giving me the chance to slow down and transition from place to place (and mindset place to place) with ease.

During: 

Be mindful to be present on your vacation. Create environments that support fully tuning out of work (like keeping your phone in airplane mode). This takes some intention and some practice for many of us. A prompt I frequently use is “What am I doing right now? What would make me most present here? What is my goal right now?”

*This isn’t to say I’m not thinking of work topics. I love my work, so I may be in an airplane or lying on a beach reading about topics that relate to my industry, learning something new that will support my career, etc, but those are intentional educational or growth decisions. I'm also making conscious choices to avoid Slacks and emails, taking client calls etc.

Upon Return:

  • Ease back from vacation-mode to work-mode. If possible, return to work one full day after you arrive home, giving yourself time to recharge from travels and soak in the memories. My workweek routine involves doing a quick overview of the week on Sunday evenings or early Monday mornings. Before my return to work, I’ll do the same thing, laying out the week ahead, with priority number one taking an inventory of what I missed while I was away, prioritizing that inventory and then, making a plan to work most effectively through my priorities.

How about you? What helps you make the most from your time off?