32. Pre-Vacation Prep: 3 Strategies to Return to Work Stress-Free
Episode 32
There’s nothing worse than taking time away from the office to relax, but then coming home to absolute chaos after you return (from vacation, from a week away, from hibernating for a month).
In this episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, I share three pre-vacation strategies that can help you relax deeper when you’re away from the office and return to work stress-free.
This episode is all about systems. And it’s for anyone who will be stepping away from the office or campus for a vacation or for any extended period of time.
✏️ FREE DOWNLOADS:
→ Daily Timeblock Planner (pdf)
→ Status Note Template (pdf)
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them. :)
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32 Pre-Vacation Prep: 3 Strategies to Return Stress-Free
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Hello, hello there. You are listening to episode 32 of the learn and work smarter podcast.
To be honest, I thought about the idea for this podcast episode back in June when I was preparing to go away on a vacation. My husband and I had our 15th wedding anniversary back in June, and we went away on vacation for a week.
And as you know, I'm the owner of my own business, there was a lot of things that I had to take care of before we upped in. We left, obviously I gave my regular scheduled coaching clients who meet with me each week advance notice. And I suppose, technically, other than doing that, I guess I could have just upped and left because I don't have a boss telling me, you know, to do otherwise.
But I am often thinking about my future self and planning things that my current self can do to make my future self less stressed out. And so over the years I have sort of fine tuned some systems that I regularly put in place [00:01:00] before I leave for vacation.
And it's these systems that enable me to have a true vacation where I can shut down and just shut off work as much as possible.
And as I was preparing for my most recent vacation in June, I was going through these motions, these systems that have worked for me so well in the past, and have worked for clients that I have shared them with over the years.
And it occurred to me that I think it would make a good podcast episode that might be helpful to at least one other person out there.
So here we are. Today's episode is going to be three things to do before you go on vacation so that you can fully relax and come home less stressed.
The full transcript of this episode and every link that I mentioned is at learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/32.
Now a quick tip before we begin with the real tips, is that everything we talk about today I can also be helpful if you don't plan on taking a vacation, but you just [00:02:00] plan on stepping away from your work or your schoolwork for a few days or a period of time, that's longer than usual. Not so much over like an ordinary weekend, but anything that's, you know, longer than you normally would.
Okay? So keep that in mind throughout the entire episode. And now that that is out of the way, I think we are ready to begin.
All right. So the first strategy that I want to share with you is something that you probably do already, but I do have a little spin on it that, um, I think might be helpful. So hear me out.
Now [00:03:00] this tip is usually used in the professional space, but if you are a college student stepping away from classes for a bit, this might be something that you might try as well.
Okay. So, what is the tip?
Setting up a vacation responder email with helpful resources for people who are emailing you.
So, as I said in the beginning, that setting up a vacation responder email that isn't groundbreaking, right? That's not a strategy. I just invented. But if you are new to the working space, You know, I do know that a lot of my listeners a run the gamut from students to establish professionals and everything in between.
So I do just for quick sec, second, bear with me. I want to cover the basic skill here of vacation responders.
A vacation responder is just a simple email that you set up in your email client, so outlook or Gmail or Yahoo or whatever, and you set it up to automatically go out to anybody who sends you an email when you're away from work or school. [00:04:00] If you've never set this up before you just Google vacation responder outlook, or vacation responder. Um, Gmail or whatever, right. And then the steps are super simple.
All right. So that's how you do it. Okay. But this is an email that goes out automatically on your behalf anytime somebody sends you an email.
It's usually one or two sentences maximum, and it includes something simple like "thank you for your email. I'm away from my desk until whatever." Usually put a date.
Um, and I plan to be backed by it whenever. In most cases, that's the basics and that's all you need. But what I am suggesting here is something one step further, a little twist, if you will. And I'll explain this in a second. Okay. But this is going to be something that your future self will thank you for.
And it's actually also really helpful to whoever is sending you an email when you're away.
Here's the tip. Include anywhere between one and three reference links or [00:05:00] email addresses of other people that you think might be helpful based on the kind of emails that you typically receive throughout the day.
All right, I'm going to give you some examples here. I'm going to start with an example of my own work-life okay.
This easiest for me to draw from, and then I'll use an example from students and then I'll use an example for like another industry. I don't know. I'll make it up when I get there. That's how I operate.
So for myself, I know that throughout the week, the most common email I get outside of emails that are like from my current clients are emails from people asking about my one-to-one coaching services.
These are either from working professionals looking, um, for like executive function, coaching or systems coaching, or for parents looking for help for their students or their, their kids.
I currently have a waitlist for my coaching services and in my vacation responder, I include a line that would be helpful to people looking for coaching services.
So that might be something like if you are in CRI a quiet inquiring about [00:06:00] executive function coaching, please know that I currently have a wait list. If you would like to join my waitlist click here.
And that simple inclusion in my autoresponder lets prospective clients know that I have a waitlist and if they choose to wait for me, they have the next steps for how to do that.
I might also include a simple line for people inquiring about my online course. Uh, SchoolHabits University, that could be something really, really simple, like for more information about schoolhabits university or schoolhabits university for education, click here.
And I would have links to both.
And then finally for me, This is only my personal example. I would usually include a link to my primary website, which is schoolhabits.com.
That is the central hub for my business, where somebody can find everything like my study tutorials, the link to this podcast, Information about my executive function journal products, the course, everything.
Okay. So those three simple additions to my autoresponder address the three most common types of emails that I personally get in a [00:07:00] week.
And if somebody writes me an email that doesn't fit into one of those categories, I am just going to deal with it when I get home. but when I give people a place to go for information in my absence, then I am essentially alleviating some work and stress on my end.
And then I am also serving those who need help when I'm out of the office.
Now one thing that you may or may not have noticed is missing from my personal autoresponder is I don't link out link out to any colleagues of mine who could provide help in the meantime. And that is simply because. I don't have any colleagues other than contractors.
But let me give you an example now of an autoresponder for someone in a typical office job. Whatever have I even mean by typical?
I don't know, but we would begin the email the same way: letting people know that you are away from the office and providing a date when you plan to be back.
You could provide one to two links to commonly sought [00:08:00] resources, maybe like a website or perhaps a form that people regularly email and ask you for, and then you're in charge of, you know, disseminating.
Obviously, this completely depends on your industry, but maybe you regularly get emails, I don't know, asking about like a project or a company event or whatever it is. Well, then you can link to those specific resources. All right.
And then something again that I don't do, because I don't have colleagues.
But it can be helpful to direct emailers that word to a colleague of yours who might be able to help them in the interim.
So for example, you could include a line that's like, if this is urgent, Please email like Betty bop, ed. Betty bop. Uh, call them or whatever, but the key is to make sure that you talk to Betty bop before you leave and make sure that she agrees to be your temporary stand-in until you return pay you.
Don't just suddenly flood everybody to Betty bop without letting her know.
All right now, I'm going to give you an example. If you are a college [00:09:00] student and you're going to be away from campus, um, maybe like for a vacation or even like winter vacation, right, when you usually have a longer break.
So you could just do nothing,
but if you want to, up-level your game, you could begin the same way you could thank them for reaching out, let them know that you're away from campus or your desk. And then the date that you planned to return.
And unless you have an extenuating situation that would require you to have any other information. If you're a student, you really don't need much more than that.
You can probably already figure out some of the benefits of having this vacation autoresponder. And I've already explained some of them, but let me emphasize this point here.
Setting up an autoresponder that has information and links to direct people, alleviate stress while you're on vacation, because you feel good knowing that people are being taken care of.
And they're not wondering where the heck you are.
And then it can relieve stress upon your return because many of those people who emailed you were able to get the information that they [00:10:00] needed. And now everything is all set and you have fewer tasks on your to-do list when you get back. And I don't know about you, but that feels like a win, win, win.
Now when you get home from vacation, this is actually something that a lot of my professional clients ask me about and struggle with.
The question is like, what the heck do you do with all those emails? And I feel like I say this a lot, but it really depends on your job and the urgency of what you do, but you will have to address these emails at some point when you return to work or to school.
If you're a physician, right, and you have patients with medical concerns, again. Yeah, there's a bit of urgency there. But if your industry is less emergency based, then you can probably tackle those emails, I don't know, over a period of two to three days.
There's some different approaches here to tackling those emails when you get back, I'm going to talk about two of them.
But like all the advice that I share, please just hear me out and then tweak and make [00:11:00] adjustments to fit your preferences and situation.
Okay. So one approach could be to schedule in time on the day that you return and maybe the day after to handle these emails in some kind of intentional and systematic way.
It is not ideal to come back from vacation and immediately sit at your desk and be bombarded by 50 different emails from 50 different people who all require different responses. That is so much mental energy and you need to prepare for that.
Okay. You can't just do that randomly and ad hoc. So maybe you plan to process your vacation emails for an hour the day that you get back from vacation and then maybe an hour or the day after that. That might do it for you.
Or maybe you need another hour on a third day. You are going to have to figure that out.
Remember, if you have, let's say 50 emails in your inbox when you return not all of them are going to need replies because many of these emails took care of themselves.
And if you are [00:12:00] uncertain about whether a person got what they needed from the links in your autoresponder, you could just send a simple reply that you kind of like use as a template, see sort of a copy and paste it to everyone.
And you're like something like this: things through email. Were you able to get what you needed? Or do you still have questions?
Something simple like that. Okay. If it's like bugging you in the back of your mind, like, do I need to reply to them? Wordsmith whatever your little template thing to fit your industry and your relationship with the person who sent the email, obviously.
Now if the idea of leaving unhandled emails in your inbox for more than a couple of days, like if you regularly tackled, uh, gradually tackled them like the previous approach, if that stresses you out so much, then you could try another approach, which is to see if you can handle the majority of your emails on your first day back.
And the way that you could do this is by intentionally- notice I'm using the word intentionally again, right? You would intentionally schedule maybe two to four [00:13:00] separate one hour sessions during your day when you can get into your inbox and just handle it.
And if, as I'm saying four separate one hour sessions and you're like, oh my gosh, that is just way too much.
I do not have that many emails then adjust to the advice and do what works for you. Maybe two one hour blocks in your day is better. Or, I don't know, maybe if you're thinking four one hour sessions won't even make a dent in your email at all. Really really stinks. Because that means your job is almost entirely based in email communication.
And that's one thing I think a lot of company has wrong, but that is. And neither here nor there. Okay.
Let's move on away from email. Let's move on to the second pre vacation tip that can help you be more relaxed during vacation or time away from school or work and also return less stressed out.
And that would be to get total [00:14:00] clarity on the status of all of your open projects. Only in an ideal world, would you leave for vacation, um, or an extended break, uh, at the exact same time that all of your projects conclude and all of your assignments are due.
That's just not how it works. Whenever we take an extended time away from our desks, we are always going to be in the middle of something that is going to have to wait for us until we return.
Now having open projects is not the problem. That's not the issue, but not having clarity on each step you're on for each of these projects, that is the issue.
So my recommendation is something that I personally do myself and I coach others to do as well.
And that is to at the most basic simplest level create some kind of status note for each project that you are leaving open for your time away.
Now, if you work in a project management system- have said this before on [00:15:00] this podcast, I personally use the free version of Asana. Then for that project, you would just write yourself a note saying what step was done last and what step that you need to resume when you return. If there is any information related to that project that you think, I don't know, you might forget during your time away from the office, you would write that in that little project note too.
So that might be something like, let's say that you're waiting on feedback from John, some colleague of yours. Well, then you would write to your. Uh, note to yourself. So when you come home to check to see if John has given you that feedback yet, because, you know, You might forget because we're just simply humans. If you don't use a digital project management system like that, that is not a problem.
I'm not suggesting you go out and start one, just cause you're going away. I use a simple pen and paper and sticky notes for this exact purpose for like 16 years before I discovered Asana. And to be honest, some of my projects now, I still don't put in a sauna and they're only tracked in my paper system.
And so there's absolutely nothing [00:16:00] wrong with writing yourself a simple status note on a piece of paper.
I often create custom status notes as a little extra for my coaching clients.
And you had better believe that I have made a downloadable status note template for you as well. And you can find that free download by going to the show notes. Which is learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/32, that link will be in the show notes in the description box if you're watching on YouTube. Obviously.
Okay. You can print out a couple of these stats, notes, status notes. And if you use the template that I give you, there's a spot for you to write the project name. And write a little note indicating the last step that you completed and the next step that you need to take when you return to the office.
Again, you can find the link to that free download is at learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/32 also linked below my friends. All right. Let's [00:17:00] talk about how the strategy can help you former feel more relaxed when you're away from work and less stressed out when you return. So our brain does not like inconclusive stories. David Allen who created the getting things done system, right?
That's like the OG of productivity. He created this wonderful name for this and it's called open loops. I didn't create that expression. I use it a lot though. Our brains do not like open loops or inconclusive narratives. And so it does everything in its little brain power to keep those open loops alive and well in our working memory so that we don't forget things.
Going back about a bazillion years ago, our brains ability to keep open loops open was super helpful because we needed to remember which cave the tire was hiding in.
Fast forward a bazillion years to today and we are no longer needing to keep track of hidden tigers, but instead we are keeping track of emails and projects and promises and things we said would follow up on. But [00:18:00] cognitively speaking, the neural networks, remembering where a dangerous tiger is hiding or the exact same neural networks that we employ
when we are trying to remember something that we told somebody would follow up with them about. So, if you can imagine keeping these open loops open it's stress-inducing. And that is what keeps us up at night, especially if we're away on vacation.
And that is not what we want. So when we set up a simple status note for each of our products projects, Projects. That is essentially an open loop, right?
You are allowing your brain to let go. You are telling your brain, Hey, I don't need to retain this information. I am not in danger. This piece of paper or this digital product card project card will remind me which tiger the cave is in when I get home.
So in other words, we can relax while we were on vacation. And then when we returned home, the [00:19:00] great part is that we don't have to spend any time thinking like, oh, no, like, what was I even working on?
What, what did I do that? What was the status of that project? I even ever send that file to so-and-so and I can't remember if I completed this step or that step, or did I actually make that phone call right? Instead, we just check our status notes or our project management tool. And we see what step that we completed right before we left and we see our notes to ourselves telling us which step that we need to pick back up to get going on the project again. It is brilliant.
Okay. We are moving on to our third and final pre-vacation tip. And that is intended to help you let go of school and work when you're away and return more peacefully. And that is to create a plan for your first day back. And I want you to do this before you leave. Now, again, this looks different for everybody, depending on if you are a student or for [00:20:00] professional or depending on what industry you're in. But here's the gist.
Okay. Before you leave your office or your campus for a period of time vacation or otherwise, plan out at least the first half of your day upon your return. Okay. For many of us that would include intentionally setting aside some time to address our email inbox. We talked about that in tip number one. For many of us that might include jumping right back into a project whose deadline just kept ticking when you were away.
I know, I know how dare it. How dare time not stop when we're on vacation.
And then maybe if you're in a manager position, you need to spend some time checking in with people on your team. Right. So in Google calendar or a simple, you know, one page daily planner, you bet I have another free, I'm just like throwing it all in there.
Template for you. That's a learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/32. There is a free daily time block T. Template in there. Take it, [00:21:00] use it. It's free. Or you can do this in Google calendar, whatever. I want you to time block at least the first part of your day back. Using the examples I just threw out that might mean. I don't know, checking in with your team from nine to 10 30. Then maybe you set aside an hour to make a dent in your inbox, bringing you to 1130. And then maybe you pick one of your urgent projects that was put on hold, right when you were away and you work on that for 90 minutes to two hours. I think that takes us to one or one 30.
This is what happens when you wing examples. And then you go get lunch. Okay. And then this is something that you design before you go on vacation. You would be thoughtful about it.
You would think to yourself as you're making this schedule, what would my future self want to tackle when I come back?
If having unanswered emails in your inbox, doesn't stress you out. Then maybe don't put that as your first [00:22:00] task, if that's not urgent for your job. Or if on the other end, if having unanswered emails raises your heart rate, just thinking about it then maybe that is the first thing that you need to handle when you get back to, so you can feel a sense of control and calm before you proceed to the Ida other items on your list. I see this a lot.
But you have to be the scientist and the experiment. And you know what that means, right. Maybe you make a plan that you think will be great when you return and then you return only to realize that. You hate your plan. Right.
Maybe it's too much. Maybe it was too stressful. Maybe you, you micromanaged it too much every, every hour. And that was too much for you.
Part of learning and working smarter is taking note of that. Asking yourself, what didn't work about this. And then what did work about this? Write these thoughts down because yes, you're, you know, a mere mortal. And you will forget these things. [00:23:00] But then the next time you go away, you look at your notes and you adjust your schedule to reflect that self assessment.
All right now, this is self-explanatory I think, but let's talk about how and why this pre-vacation tip can help you enjoy your time away, but also have a more relaxed return to school and work.
So the first things first, our brains love clarity. Clarity is the enemy to procrastination and it is often the enemy to anxiety. If you have a thoughtful, intentional and reasonable plan of attack for your first day back at the office or school, you'll be able to spend your time away from the office less worried and panicked about your return. You can mitigate those thoughts of, oh no, it's going to be bananas when I get back, or like, oh, when I return it, it's going to be a mess. Right. We've all said this to ourselves. That was going to be a dumpster fire when I get back.
No, it won't. Says who? [00:24:00] Why does it have to be? Not if you know exactly what is happening when you get back. Right. And how do you know exactly what's happening when you get back?
You designed it that way.
And then your first day back at the office, or back on campus can be spent calmly just doing when you said you were going to do. There is no frantic what do I do now? Like what do I do first? Where do I start? And then we become paralyzed and we don't take any action.
And that makes everything worse. Right. And we jumped from our inbox or inbox and catching up with colleagues and then it, no. It's calm and it's reasonable.
Now, I do want to emphasize reasonable. I have used that word a few times already because I think that it is important that we give ourselves some grace when we return to our routine.
Now there've been times when I'm away on vacation and sometimes, you know, I love diving back into my work at a hundred percent tenacity when I get back, but there are also times when I return and I [00:25:00] need to be a little bit more gentle. I guess it depends on the season. It depends on what I was doing during my time away.
I would imagine it's the same for you. You know, if we're on vacation and we're actually relaxed and disconnected, well then yeah, sometimes maybe we are ready to hit the ground running at near full speed. But if I spend my time away, because there was, you know, A death. Or, or something just complicated and heavy, then I'm not diving full back diving. Diving back in full speed on my first day back, you have to read yourself your skill level, your emotions, the situation. So that's why I'm emphasizing that your return to work or return to campus schedule I guess we'll call it. It should be reasonable for the version of you that is returning to work.
All right. I just want to recap these three strategies. We just went over. Okay. I think I'm getting better at doing my recaps. It was a goal I had, and I think I've done every single episode since I set the goal.
All right. The first one is [00:26:00] to set up an autoresponder that contains helpful information and resources to serve those who are reaching out to you during your time away. In many cases, this then can simply be one to three bullet points that might redirect people to resources or people who might be helpful to them.
The second strategy is to get absolute clarity on the full status of all of your open projects. I call this writing a status note to yourself.
Of course you could use your project management tool if you already have one, you can use my free status note template that I've linked below. You can use a sticky note. It doesn't matter.
And then finally create a return to work or campus schedule outlining three of your most important tasks for your first day back.
And when you create this schedule, think about the future you who is going to be returning to your desk and what would be reasonable for that person to handle after the first day back after vacation or time away.
All right. [00:27:00] My friends that brings us to the end of the episode. I hope you found this helpful.
If you did find it helpful, could I ask you to please share this with someone you think might also find it helpful? Or to leave a review, to subscribe to the YouTube channel if you are watching it on that medium, and if you haven't done so already, and please know that I appreciate you all very much and as always, never stop learning.
