One of the top four reasons cited for not taking a vacation is the dread of returning to a backlog of messages and work.  Forty percent of respondents in a recent study by the U.S. Travel Association said they avoided taking vacation because of concerns about returning from vacation!

Returning to work after vacation doesn’t have to be awful.  Making a few  decisions and taking some actions beforehand can help smooth your re-entry and, if you’re like the 40% in the survey, hopefully encourage and inspire you to take that much-needed vacation this year.

Before you go make some reasonable decisions based on the following questions:

• How important is it that work continues on projects while you’re away?  A word of caution.  For many people and in many industries most work can wait.   For most people, when they are humble and honest with themselves, the answer to the question of can it wait until you get back is yes.  In order to put work on hold do a few things before you leave to communicate your plans and manage expectations.  There is a difference between going on vacation and dropping the ball.  You don’t want to drop the ball.  Before you go on vacation let your team and customers know about your vacation plans and know what to expect with regard to the parts of projects you are responsible for.  Failure to communicate and manage expectations before you leave is dropping the ball and results for a stressful re-entry after vacation.
• For projects that can’t stop while you’re away, who can you delegate them to?  There are likely some things that can’t hold while you’re gone.  In that case, delegate the work and communicate the temporary change to stakeholders.
• Do you really need to review all your voicemail and email messages first thing upon your return?  If you answered yes, what prevents you from saying no? Challenge your habits against reality.  Most people don’t have to do this first thing and there are many good reasons not to.  There is a significant cost to your stress level and ability to productively get back to work after vacation when the first thing you do (probably before you even get back to the office and likely on the airport tarmac) is check your voice and email messages.  Make getting back to work a higher priority than checking in on what happened while you were gone.
• Can you share the responsibility of following up?  There is a norm in our society right now to encourage people to leave messages for you in voicemail or email while you’re on vacation and that you will take sole responsibility to follow up upon your return.  Why is that?  Does it have to be that way?  No!  Use your out of office messages to ask others to share in the responsibility of follow up.  Again it’s all about managing expectations so people you work with will know what to expect and what to do.
  • For voicemail: In your out-going voice mail message, let people know you’re on vacation, when you’ll be out of the office, when you’ll return and who they can contact in the meantime.  Also let them know that you may not get back to them right away when you return and that if the message is very important and time-sensitive, to call back after you return.
  • For email: The same can be done via email.  Set up your out of office response to tell people you’re on vacation, when you’ll return, who to contact in your absence and that due to a high inbox volume when you return it may take time before you respond.  Let them know if the message is very important and time-sensitive, to get back to you after you return.

After you’ve made and communicated your decisions to the questions above, follow these strategies for preparing for a smoother reentry after vacation.

• Set up your out of office out-going messages.  We discussed more effective ways for using these messages above.  Make sure the messages you choose to use include that you’re on vacation, the dates you’ll be gone, who to contact in your absence (be sure to include contact information like phone number and email address) and what message leavers can expect from you when you return.
• Automatically move email to a vacation folder.  The visual of a full email inbox can be a demoralizing thing to see when you return to work.  Set yourself up for a better reentry by creating a folder called Vacation and set up a rule or filter to have messages bypass your inbox in move to this folder while you’re on vacation.  When you get back to work you’ll start with just the messages from that day and you’ll have a folder of messages to go to when you’re ready to process the backlog of email.
• Create a first day back work plan before you go.  A key reason going back to work is stressful is because people feel like they have to dig out from being gone and are unsure what the first day back will be like other than awful.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Before you leave decide on what tasks you need to do when you first get back.  Perhaps you need to prepare for a meeting that day or check in with a client or complete a recurring monthly task in order not to get behind.  Make a note of these tasks and do them first!  Schedule time later in your day to process messages and items you received while you were away.  If needed, schedule brief in-person meetings or phone calls to catch up with key colleagues and clients after you return.

Vacations are important to your health, well-being and productivity.  Don’t let the fear of returing back to work prevent you from taking a vacation.  Use these ideas and strategies to help make returning from vacation easier and less stressful.  Contact us if you’d like help developing and adopting these organized skills and systems for yourself.