2 Questions You Must Ask Yourself Before Going on Vacation.

The stress of going on vacation is REAL!

And I’m not talking about the planning, the grocery shopping, the daily activity list for the kids, or the worry about how much food you are going to eat on vacation and how many miles it’s going to take to work it off.

I am talking about the real stress.?The anxiety and nervousness of what is going to happen while you're away from the office.?

·????????What if such and such client calls, how is the team going to handle it??

·????????What is my team going to do when this happens?

·????????What if someone quits what are we going to do?

And the biggest stressor we put on ourselves,

·????????You know what, I can’t go.?No one can do any of my tasks as good as me.?

You see, just the anticipation of what is needed to be done at work is giving you stress and anxiety before ever getting in the car to drive the family across the country.?That should be the real stress, how to keep a 2- and 3-year-old occupied in the car for 14 hours.

However, we take pride in our work and have a strong desire to put our team in a great position.

So, we start posting stickies of everything that needs to get done weeks before, we create a million-long task list of everything that we normally handle in a week, or we go on like everything is normal and pray someone else will take care of everything while you are away.

I am the list guy.?And that means I am starting to plan what I need to get done.

I think it's natural to have a strong desire to get your ducks in a row and make sure that your team is well-prepped for when you are out.

And as a leader, do we really ever turn our minds off of "work mode?"

But, we can limit the amount of time we spend thinking about work instead of lying by the beach, building sandcastles with the kids.

And that's why when you have a good plan for while you are out you can feel confident in how your organization can move forward while you are out.

To get started with this I begin asking others this simple question as issues come up and are brought to me,

"How would you handle this situation?"

AND, then asking this, "What else?"

By asking these simple questions you allow the team member to think through different scenarios and come up with a multitude of options.

And the thing is, most of the time one of their options is a great solution!

We use this question all the time at our hotel accounting practice so that no matter who is on vacation our customers always know they have a team behind them that is looking out for the best solution.

If you had these two questions as part of your accounting team, can you imagine how much less stress you would have when your accountant was on vacation?

Even better, can you imagine how great you would feel if everyone on your team asked these questions before coming to you?

By adding just those 2 simple questions, you could actually be WITH your family playing in the sand instead of worrying about what was happening back at the office.

So, the next time you are about to get a little rest and relaxation start your vacation a few weeks in advance by asking the questions,

"How would you handle this?" and "What else?"

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