7 Important Things To Do At Work Before Going On Vacation

It’s always nice to take a break after long months of working hard.?

After all, we all deserve a relaxing getaway. But vacations are never the same when you have work right at your heel.

It doesn’t matter if you’re taking an entire month off. If you’ve got work on your mind, and if you’re constantly picturing the workload that’s waiting on your desk, then did you ever really take a break?

Since we’re living in a technologically-connected world, it’s so difficult to disconnect. From phone calls to emails - we seem to be at our work’s beck and call.

So how exactly do we disconnect and make sure we’re enjoying every second of our vacation? How do we go back on track at work without difficulty??

Here are some important things to do before leaving work for vacation:

1. Let people know

Do your clients know? Have you informed them that you’ll be on vacation?

Don’t leave your customers hanging. Let your regular clients know that you’ll be out of the office for a period of time, just so they’re aware that you’ll be out of touch temporarily.

It’s a good idea to let them know you won’t be available for a while. If you don’t let people know you’ll be unavailable at certain times, your clients may feel frustrated and confused by your lack of response.

2. Create an automated reply

Let your clients and colleagues know you’re on vacation by setting up automated replies and emails. Through this, your clients won’t book appointments and bombard you with phone calls and emails the moment you get back.

Other than this, you can also provide one of your colleague’s contact information for urgent matters.

Make sure to leave a greeting in your voicemails and automated replies, and more information on when you’ll be back for work.

3. Inform your colleagues

Have you talked to your boss ahead of time? Do your colleagues know you’ll be gone for a while?

It’s important to talk to your boss preferably a month prior to your vacation. This leaves enough room and time for everyone to delegate the tasks you need to accomplish as soon as possible.

You can also send out emails to your colleagues informing them of your temporary absence and remind them of when they can expect you back. Through this, there won’t be any conflicts when it comes to team tasks and they’ll know when to contact you.

4. Check on your tasks

Do you have tasks that need to be submitted this week? What projects can you hand over to your colleagues while you’re away?

This is the reason why it’s preferable to plan your vacation months prior. Set enough time for you to finish your most important tasks and then some more so you can get back on track easily.

Make an organised list of all your tasks and projects, attach shareable forms, and add progress updates and notes. This way your colleagues will stay informed about the specifics of your finished and ongoing projects.

And in case somebody else needs to take over your projects while you’re away, they can easily read through your notes and edit your file.

Just remember to create a list of all the tasks you need to finish sooner, and the tasks you can continue when you come back.

5. Clean your office

Believe it or not, people will forget to water your plants. So it’s highly recommended that you take matters into your own hands.

Water your plants, take out the trash, clear your desk, and write yourself a welcome back message on the whiteboard. It’s essential that you come back to a clean workspace from vacation.

Spend a day clearing your space of any clutter. You should also look into detangling your cables, deep cleaning your computer software and hardware, and unplugging everything that shouldn’t be running while you’re gone.

This way you won’t feel dreadful coming back to work after a nice vacation. You might even feel renewed and more energised to get back to work!

6. Turn off all notifications

This is the step that either makes or breaks your vacation break. You could be Instagramming all your favorite tourist spots one second, and the next you might feel bad about receiving an email about your clients’ poor reviews.

So to prevent ruining your mood, turn off all work-related notifications on your phone. Log out of work emails, quit work apps, and turn off work calendars.

7. Set expectations for emergencies

Some emergencies cannot be helped, so you should leave instructions on how you can be reached in case of an emergency. It can be through your personal phone number, which you definitely won’t disable during your break.

However, you should set boundaries on what constitutes a real emergency. Is a task too difficult for your colleagues to take over? Or is there a client you need to get to immediately??

Remember to set expectations on what emergencies are, and when they should contact you. Don’t let mere work complications ruin your once-in-a-lifetime break, because you deserve to unwind.

So have you cleared everything? Checked everything out of your to-do list??

Keep in mind that you deserve this break. Don’t let work get in the way of your temporary peace and quiet. And most importantly, make sure you get back on track easily!

If you need more of these career tips, words of advice, and exclusive workplace content, visit Fllair, which is a career platform that helps boost employee morale with its useful work content.

Moreover, you can plan your next vacation in Australia and probably find a more fitting job for you there! I recommend looking at Optimum Consulting, which has a career support site that will help you start a fresh new beginning for your career!