As we are well into summer holiday season, I have been waiting patiently to turn on my ‘out of office’ and use annual leave to spend some quality time with my family.

Although we all work so hard in our roles and look forward to our well-earned annual leave, if we are not appropriately prepared and disciplined, we can find ourselves in a position where we are not getting the full benefits of our time away from our desks.

The working from home culture has provided us with so much more flexibility, which has definitely helped with work life balance. However, this does offer another set of challenges when we are scheduling in annual leave due to the ease of accessibility to work through various portable devices.  

As I approach my time away from work, I have reflected on the strategies that I implement to give me the best possible opportunity to be ‘in the moment’ away from work, both physically and mentally so that I can get maximum benefit of my leave and come back refreshed and ready for busy months closing out 2024.

Communication

The first thing that I ensured I had clear was plenty of time building up to my time off. No real issue there to be honest, as I’ve been counting down for the last 3 months! There is a practical reason why this is important though. As the leave approaches, I ensure that I have communicated the dates that I will not be available to all colleagues that need to be made aware.  I either send a courtesy email to update key contacts or verbally remind them.

This allows everyone to be aware of my leave and gives opportunities to raise any queries or concerns that may need resolving prior to this time and can therefore be prioritised. If there is plenty of notice, there should be no surprises, which on the whole should assist in reducing the need for urgent enquiries during my time away.

Calendar blocking

I am a big fan of lists and use the blocking technique in my calendar to ensure that all of my tasks are planned within my working week, prioritising urgent tasks and anything with a deadline so that I know that they will be completed. Leading up to annual leave I start to look into these tasks and make some decisions on what I must complete as a priority before I go away, what can be scheduled when I return and is there anything that I can hand over to colleagues to complete whilst I am away. This gives me complete clarity on my to-dos and I know that I have been organised with my planning so that when it comes to logging off, I am up to date with my urgent actions, or have a plan on when I am going to progress less urgent tasks on my return.

Support

JSP encourages all members of the team to reach out for support if they need it – no one should log off from work worried about something for an evening, weekend or a longer period of leave. If there are any nagging doubts or concerns, we have a culture to reach out and talk it through with a colleague or senior. 100% of the time, when discussed it’s never as bad as it initially seems. There may be certain tasks that can be handed over to keep things moving in your absence.

As my leave date approaches, I take some time to consider anything that I may be concerned about and then reach out to appropriate colleagues so that I can discuss it, consider a plan of action and then ‘box it off’ so that I am able to switch off until I return?

Admin and future planning

Some more priority actions as my leave approaches include ensuring that my out of office clearly states emails not being checked and the provision of relevant contact for the sender to reach out to in case an urgent response is required  

I also ensure that my work mobile phone is diverted to our office, so that the caller can be made aware of my annual leave.  

Finally, I look ahead at my schedule on return and ensure that I have blocked out time to catch up. It’s tempting to dive straight back into meetings and calls but it’s important to remember that after a period away, there will be some catching up to do!

Logging off and locking up

So, a lot a lot of the focus is on tasks that can help with the mental aspect of logging out of work and to ensure that I can go away and enjoy my holiday, without being concerned about work. Thanks to flexible hybrid working, physically logging off is also a potential challenge as there is the temptation to just quickly check emails or messages when you have a few minutes. I recognise that this can cause more of an issue as there are plans in place to progress things in my absence thanks to all of the strategies I’ve discussed, so meddling when I’m supposed to be on leave may cause more work for my colleagues!

A simple way to ensure that I’m physically able to switch off is when I lock away my laptop and phone. It’s out of sight so no visual prompt or temptation to ‘just quickly check’ something whilst away.

Andrew Patterson, Business Director