7 Easy Tasks before going on a mini-vacation

Summer is here and we are all planning for some time away, even us Small Business Owners. Last week, I talked about ways to take an affordable mini-vacation.

This week, I will be talking about 7 easy tasks to do before actually going on a mini-vacation.

• If you use papers often, set up your desk for the first day you return. Place all the tasks in order by priority.
• Update your planner for when you have returned BEFORE you leave. Write down what you need to do when you return the day before. There may be some changes but the majority of the tasks will be there and it will remind you what needs to be done, even if you have more to write.
• Send an email to your clients a few weeks before to tell them of your up-in-coming mini vacation. Especially those customers you speak to often. Then again remind them a few days before. This will help the people who don’t write it down.  Make up a sample email that you use each year so you don’t have to create a new one every time you go on vacation.
  • IN THE EMAIL, INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:
    • Exact dates you will be gone
    • The reason you are NOT in the office
    • Mention who they can contact when you are not around (if any).
  •  WHAT NOT TO MENTION:
    • Too many details about your time away.
    • Volunteering another person for a task when you didn’t ask them.
    • Telling people who you will contact them as soon as you return from vacation. Remember: you will need time to catch up so don’t make any obligations or promises that will stress you.
• Set up an out of office message in the PM the day before you leave.  We tend to be on call with our clients but doing this will also remind the customers that are not less organized about writing down other people’s schedules. Make sure the message is professional. You can say things like: “I will be out of the office from _____ to ______. Please leave a message and I will get back to you after _____ (date). If it is an emergency, please contact ________ at __________ number. Thank you for calling.”
  • WHAT NOT TO SAY:
    • Don’t mention you are on vacation.  Since small business owners usually work from home, by saying you are on a vacation, it basically is telling a stranger no one is home.
• Take caution when setting up autoresponder email messages. This will respond automatically to ANYONE who sends you a message even the stores, solicitors, and spam. I like to use this only for certain email addresses. As business owners, you probably have more than one email.  If you decide to do autoresponders, be sure to use it only for the email addresses with the least about of spam.
  • WHAT TO INCLUDE IN AUTORESPONDER MESSAGES:
    • I will be out of the office from ______ to ________. If you need immediate help while I’m unavailable, please email (other person’s email address). Thank you for your understanding.
    • I will be unavailable from ________ to ________. If you need immediate help, please contact __________ at (other person’s email address)by email. Thank you for your understanding.
  • HOW TO SETUP AUTORESPONDERS ON THE MOST POPULAR EMAIL CLIENTS:
    • Microsoft Outlook
    • Gmail
    • Yahoo
• Set up appointments before you leave for when you return. If you meet with clients, make sure your recurring appointments are in the books so you don’t miss a meeting.
• Write your posts ahead of time. If you blog weekly, write a simple but detailed blog post for when you are away. To make the post easier to write, you can use an older archived more general post and elaborate more on a particular part of the post and create a whole new post.  This way, you have the majority of information and just need to add a few more facts to finish it off.  This speeds up the process of creating and writing the post.

Well, that’s it for now.  I hope these 7 Easy Tasks before going on a mini-vacation help you get ready for your well-deserved time away. Now it’s your turn, what do you do to get ready for your vacation?  Is there a task that you do that isn’t included above?  Please leave a comment below.  I would love to hear from you.

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