Yip, there is a new sickness around. It has sneaked up on us in the last decade. The US as always appears to have been the leader, but it can be seen in other countries as well.
What is it? A fear of going on holiday. A fear, that while we are away from the office, things will move on without us, we will have forgotten something and will be shown up as slackers. But I think the most pervasive fear is the email overload that occurs when an inbox is left unattended.
The thought of returning from holiday to an inbox that is overflowing with unknown requests, potential bear traps and the odd back covering exercise, leaves us fearful, sweaty and ready to cancel holiday rather than face this fear.
And so, in this new world people take work with them if they are brave enough to take a holiday. They end us working from a new location and ignoring those that they say they love and "are doing this work for".
Well, I had a similar crisis recently. I had booked an extended holiday in South Africa, three work weeks in total. I had booked this holiday a year in advance, and in my previous role this was fine and could be handled easily. However, a month and a half before this holiday was due to begin, I was promoted to a new role. One that was a lot more demanding than my previous role. I had a staff member that felt they were better for the job than me and seemed to store up urgent requests for the time that I was away.
Yet, I managed through this. How?
1. Turning Dead Time into Magic Time
If your family is like mine, they sleep, and a lot. The wonderful hours between 5-7am become a window of opportunity. Working during these hours you can avoid impacting the rest of the day with your family. You can be totally engaged with them and during the inevitable slow times during the day, you can find the time for yourself, to read or snooze etc.
But, beware. Force the work to those hours only. If you break this rule, you will end up working most of the day and violating the trust in the relationship with those you care for the most. To hell with that trouble maker at work, your 6 and 14 year olds are far more important!
If your family are early risers, use a couple of hours in the evening, what ever works best for you. But, the secret is to keep the work corralled in those "magic hours".
2. Pack Light
That laptop, leave it at home, even it it is an Adamo or an XPS One, leave it. Pack only your Blackberry or similar Apple or Windows device. Take your own private mobile phone, do not use your work phone for private calls while on holiday (actually, you should do this as a matter of course year round).
Now, during the magic 2 hours, switch on your device, collect the email and systematically work from the top to the bottom of the inbox. Once the email is open, deal with it:
-ignore as not important
-respond as this needs immediate attention
-record an action to take when back in the office in what ever task management system you use (I use Omnifocus as I am a GTD'er - recording the task in Omnifocus on my Touch or iPad)
Once the email is marked as open, that's it, I know that I have dealt with it and I move onto the next in the list. During that magic 2 hours I open all mail, meaning that when I complete the inbox, I will not have some little icon badge showing a large number of un-dealt-with potential land mines.
Now if you had packed your laptop, you would be dealing with everything and the 2 hours would stretch into 8 and into that precious time with the family.
Once the inbox has been reviewed; SWITCH THE DEVICE OFF! Don't be a Crackberry Head, this is yours and your families holiday, break your email addiction.
Yes, ignore voicemail. People know you are on holiday (you should have an out-of-office message on your mail client and in that message say that you will review email, not voicemail). Listening to voicemail leads to phone calls and time will make that uncomfortable slip and when you put down the handset, the kids will have families of their own and will not know who their parent really is.
3. Focus on priorities
yes, remember the priority on your holiday is your family. If you don't have one, the priority is you and your closest, not the Project Manager working on that software release, or some other such thing.
As a parent, focusing on the family will actually recharge your batteries, you don't need to have your own 8 hours of focus on you, it is a false dream. If you were to do this, you would feel crappy, like a failure.
During the magic 2 hours, again, focus on what is important. What will fail if you do not respond now? That is where you spend the 120 minutes, the rest can wait. You will likely find that the rest will kindda sort itself out.
Remember the steps described above; ignore, take action, record for an office day.
4. The Return Day
Now, when others return to email inboxes in the thousands of unread messages and their hearts palpitate and the holiday relaxation is stripped from them like paint with a heavy solvent, you will simply open the inbox and move all unread messages into your reference folder - you have dealt with them! Whoo hoo :).
Before going on leave, clear the first day back, cancel all meetings. Use that day to clear the remaining unread emails and addressing the actions that you recorded while on leave. Now if you are a GTD'er, do your weekly review first thing, you will get clear, get current and get creative!
And that is it, simple really. You will return with people not really noticing that you have been gone as you have dealt with the big stuff.
I hope that this works for you as well as it has worked for me.
