Is going on vacation stressful? How to really get away from work. Part 2

In the first part of “Is going on vacation stressful? How to really get away from work,” I discussed the importance of vacation for your well-being and work productivity and the importance of allowing support for you to truly be away from the office for an extended period. Keep reading for tips on how to make it happen.

Before You Go on Vacation

Fostering a vacation culture

If you have a workplace culture where disconnecting for vacation is the norm, then it is time to book that next getaway and go for it. However, it may be more difficult if your colleagues or boss tend to pass on vacation or go on vacation and still work (like I used to do). Fortunately, there are things you can do to create change: 

1) Develop cross-coverage support; 

2) Set realistic expectations with your colleagues regarding your availability and work timelines; 

3) Find people you can support during their vacation, and they will, in turn, support yours. 

With intentional work, we can train our colleagues and clients on what vacation means. 

If you work in a culture, like a physician’s office, where you typically deal with your own patients and have managed them while on vacation, find a willing partner to swap coverage. To do this, consider setting the ground rules about how completely you want to cover each other. Ideally, you empower each other to answer all messages and not leave much, if anything, for when you return. Managing only emergencies and leaving a full inbox makes vacation difficult because of the dread of the piled-up work to dig through upon your return. To have someone cover for you, you may want to talk about and standardize some of your approaches. You also need to trust. You may return, and something may have been handled differently than you would have. Think hard before being critical of your covering person, and avoid micromanaging. If no one was truly harmed, I suggest leaving it alone. The more you second guess their choices, the more difficult it will be for them to support you in the future. Have you ever given “feedback” about the laundry or loading the dishwasher to your partner, only to be told, “Well, why don’t you do it then.” This may also happen at work if you don’t learn to relinquish some control.

Managing emails

Consider talking with your team about what emails people need to be included on while people are out of the office. Do you really need to cc someone on all the back and forth? Why not just catch them up on the final result? Some companies like Dimler Auto delete emails to employees on vacation with a notification that this will occur and, if necessary, to resend the email after their return. Something I’m going to try on my next vacation is to set up an automation to archive all emails except those that have PLEASE READ in the subject line. My out-of-office notification will let people know that messages are archived, and if they want their message to be seen, they will need to resend with PLEASE READ in the subject line. This would be in addition to the expected dates I will be gone and who is covering for me. It may be that several people are covering, so I’ll provide the details on what they should be contacted for and how to contact them. I am now explicit that I will not check email while away and will respond after returning to the office.

Give yourself time to close all the tabs

Going on vacation requires added preparation at work to close the open tabs and tidy things up. Give yourself the space to do this. Don’t book a lot of meetings the day before you leave. If you have meetings, be upfront about your vacation plans and their impact on your timelines, and don’t agree to anything that requires work while on vacation. It may feel awkward initially, but it will get easier as time progresses.

While on Vacation

Managing emails

While away on vacation, don’t scan your email even though you’ve told people you won’t respond until your return. You may think you’re saving time and making your re-entry to work more manageable by scanning your email, deleting junk, and maybe triaging simple stuff. However, you are cutting yourself off at the knees. If you train people to think you will respond even if you’ve told them you won’t, they won’t trust what you tell them. You will show them that you lied when you said you would not be answering emails. Furthermore, many of those trivial emails you managed would have sorted themselves out. Also, the only real way to know if something is important or trivial is to read the email. This means you’ve read what you now know to be an important message yet are in no position to respond. This will only make relaxing and enjoying the present moment much more difficult. To support not looking at your email, consider deleting the email app from your phone while on vacation. 

What about the text messages?

Despite all my best efforts with email, I still get phone calls and text messages while on vacation. My personal phone and work phone are mixed. I manage this by answering phone calls only if I know it is a friend or family member. Since Apple doesn’t have a great way to set automatic out-of-office replies on the iPhone outside of while you’re driving, I respond to work-related text messages by letting them know I’m on vacation and who they can contact. I believe Android phones can set up automatic replies, so this would also be a great option.

Accepting what is

With my mind free of work, I can be present for my vacation and those I’m traveling with. To fully enjoy my vacation, I remind myself of a few things. These may be unique to me, but I bet you have your own unique travel quirks. I find the airport particularly stressful. I have traveled a lot, so for a while, I was judgemental about the tension and anxiety that would bubble up as we navigated the airport and security. I thought, “I should be better at this,” “I should be more relaxed.” I now know this is just a thing and doesn’t mean anything. I have accepted that it will be there and don’t make much of it when I feel the tension rising. Getting a rental car is also pretty stressful. My sister tends to be disappointed with her rental property, as it never looks as good as the pictures. She has done it enough times that she is not surprised by this buyer’s remorse and lets it pass. Accepting that my vacations will have stressful times and may not be what I imagined lets me surrender to what is and enjoy the pleasures that are there for me, even if they are different than I imagined or even thought I wanted. 

After Vacation

Just like you anticipate the rush of things to do to prepare for vacation, it is helpful to anticipate the added catch-up time after your return. Consider keeping your first day back in the office light on meetings. Give yourself space to work through email and other inboxes, and catch up with your supervisors and direct reports on events that transpired while away. Skip the gossip or play-by-play that adds clutter and stick to the final results that impact your next steps on projects. 

In the end, my trip to Lisbon was fantastic. I was stressed at the airport. I received a few texts requesting assistance with patients that I redirected to my colleagues back in Atlanta. The city is beautiful, with wonderful music, food, art, and history. I’m ready to plan my next trip! How about you?