Preparing for a Successful Vacation

Fall launch season is almost upon us and if you’re like most online business owners, you’ve got a post-launch vacation on the books to celebrate and recharge after the intense launch period. Congratulations!

If you’ve been around for any period of time, you know that Any Old Task is borderline persnickety about taking care of yourself. You are your business’s steward and visionary. When you’re burnt out, your business begins to die and all the people you’re meant to help end up lost and in pain for longer than they need to.

And, as a business owner, it’s SO easy to add “just one more!” task to your day. Your passion feeds you but if you’re not careful and guard your energy, you can get burnt out and become a bottleneck to your business’s growth.

Breaks are important because it helps to recharge your energy, yes. More importantly, breaks away from your business allow for more inspiration. How many ideas pop into your head in the shower, or while you’re driving, or during a good run? Disconnecting as much as possible from your business during a vacation helps to refuel your inspiration to accomplish even bigger goals.

What does a successful vacation look like? You’ll have your own version of a successful vacation, but here’s what mine looks like: a period of time where I don’t have to do any work. I don’t have to respond to any emails or even look at my computer. I can go for long walks in nature and sit on my deck sipping something at 2pm if I want.

Whether you’ve got a team or not, here are some tips to help you plan for a successful vacation, as in, one where you don’t take your laptop with you and you’re not glued to your phone.

1. Notify your clients of your vacation plans.

Let your clients know exactly when your vacation starts and ends. Let them know if you’re going to be available at all.

When I go on vacation, I try to make myself completely unavailable if at all possible. I trust my team to take care of clients while I’m away. If there is an emergency that only I can take care of, my clients and team have specific ways to reach me – NOT in the usual email, Slack or Voxer channels.

2. Set up your autoresponders.

I typically set 3 autoresponders. one for while I’m actually out of the office; one for the day before I leave, letting people know I’m prepping to be out of the office; and one for the day I return from vacation letting people know that I’ve just gotten back into the office and my response time may be longer than usual. To remove the possibility of human error, we automate these autoresponders inside our email client.

My team has a documented SOP for when we go on vacations, so it’s very streamlined and everyone knows what tasks are required to keep the ship running before, during and after their vacation.

3. Turn off all notifications.

Don’t break your own rules. Remove the temptation to work and turn off notifications for email and all work-related apps. Rest assured that your team will be able to handle whatever comes up and if it’s really an emergency, they know how to contact you. Now, go out and refresh, restore and be inspired!

Building a proficient, properly trained team is one of the best ways to ensure you can enjoy a relaxing, stress-free vacation. If you’ve yet to hire and train your first Virtual Assistant, check out our mini-course How To Hire And Train Your First Virtual Assistant.

Not sure if a Virtual Assistant is who you need to add to your team right now? Get my strategic eyes on your business with a Team Planning Session.