By Barbara Nixon
The sun is nearly shining, and the countdown to holiday season is only a few more months away. But how does that make you feel?
Excited at the thought of having some much needed time off and a break from the day to day?
Or, do you have a niggly feeling of worry and overwhelm as you know exactly what’s coming? That you’re going to have to do what feels like a month’s work in advance before you can even think about setting one foot out of the door does this fill you with dealing with stress. Not to mention the thought of coming back after your break to a gazillion e-mails that you’ll have to plough through leaving your holiday fading in your memory quicker than your sun tan?
Sound familiar?
Time off really shouldn’t be this hard. Working full pelt 24/7 isn’t good for anyone. It’s not sustainable and all it does is bring you closer to feeling stressed and burnt out.
So how do you switch this on its head so you’re not so shattered in the run up to your holiday that it takes you ages to wind down and relax?
Use your team
Your team are there to support you and to take some of the strain, and this is a perfect time for them to step up.
By regularly delegating to your team you’ll be up skilling them to be solution focused and self sufficient which is exactly how you need your team to be operating.
This will help you feel much more confident leaving them to it for a couple of weeks without anything scary happening.
Communicate
Keep your team completely in the loop about what’s currently going on with all your projects so they can step in and answer any questions or solve any problems in your absence. Even though you will have planned for your holiday, sometimes things spring up so it’s always a good idea to make sure your team feel comfortable should anything unexpected happen.
Use your systems
We all know that people go on holiday and have days off. That’s allowed. The problem comes when things are left up in the air and in a mess. Some great systems in place will solve this problem. It could be anything from an out of office message on your e-mail explaining who the best person to contact in your absence is, to a frequently asked question document where everyone can access it, to having enough cover in the office to cope with everything.
So if you’re counting down to some much needed time off make the time now to get your team ready to take the slack so you can really re charge your batteries without worrying what’s happening in your absence.
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