How to Take a Real Working Vacation

In the current climate, vacations of any sort may be out of the question for a few months, unfortunately. As ever, it’s always good to have something to look forward to, so why not plan-out your next working vacation and how you might achieve some if not much, downtime!

Let Your Team Know

This may not be applicable if you are self-employed and don’t have any employees, however, for everyone else it can be a good idea to communicate your specific plans.

For example, let them know that you will be working intermittently and not worry about getting in touch in case of any emergencies. Set expectations as to what, if anything you are likely to get done whilst on your vacation.

Choose a Suitable Location For Work & Play

If you are planning on doing a substantial amount of work, then you may need to look at taking a scenic city-break, rather than a motorhome trip of the outback. 

If you just want to be able to check your email for emergencies, then anywhere with a signal should be fine of course. If you want to be physically available if an emergency of some sort does occur, then consider – how far away do you want to be should the case arise?

Commit to Checking Your Email Once or Twice a Day

Simply to check for emails, it can be worth having a schedule whereby you check your emails first thing in the morning and just after dinner at night, for example.

You can then use an app such as Boomerang to schedule all your emails, no matter what time your press the “send” button, to go out at say – 6 pm that evening.

By scheduling your emails, you shouldn’t get stuck in an infinite loop of replying to someone’s replies, just line them all up to be sent at the same time each day.

It’s important to set boundaries and within reason, stick to them. Restricting how often you check your work email is a good starting point!

Note Things Down

Focus and creativity are catalysed by different working environments. Whilst to be productive, it can help to be in a busy, working office, creativity is often better served by a relaxed environment.

With this in mind, you may likely have some great ideas whilst enjoying a vacation. Have your phone at the ready so that you can jot down any ideas. An old fashioned notepad and pen may also work well.

Smartphone Apps to Make Your Vacation Go Swimmingly

There are countless smartphone apps available for entrepreneurs. Some particularly useful ones for a working vacation include:

• Moneypenny virtual receptionist
• Google Drive
• SignEasy
• Pocket

The Moneypenny app is great for anyone who is a solopreneur. It has two main advantages:

1. You appear bigger & more professional – having a receptionist suggests that you employ staff and have an office
2. Unwanted interruptions are more often than not, prevented, allowing you to focus on the work at hand.

If you are on vacation, then number 2 is possible the main advantage in this scenario. Enjoy your time away without any annoying sales calls. If you work as part of a team or employ staff, then your Moneypenny receptionist will route the right calls to the right people, to further reduce any interruptions.

Google Drive provides you with the ability to hold all of your documents and spreadsheets etc in the cloud. This means that you can access them wherever in the world you may be, as long as you have internet access. You can also work on documents at the same time as teammates and colleagues.

SignEasy is a very handy app to have if you deal with any legal documents. If you need something signing off, this no longer needs to be done in person. You can do this electronically with SignEasy.

Pocket is great for saving bits of information and web pages from across the web that you may want to use and revert to later. This is ideal for when you are on your phone and see something of interest to you and/or your business.

The Best Chrome Extensions for Your Laptop

Assuming that you are taking your laptop with you, there are several extensions for the Google Chrome browser are extremely helpful when it comes to organising yourself and staying productive.

Todoist – this is a very simple, yet very helpful app that can be set up before you start your vacation. You can set up and schedule any work that you want to complete whilst you are away. The extension (and phone app) also comes with some handy templates, you can even use it just to plan the vacation itself!

Loom – great for remote working in general, you can prevent the time consuming back and to of emails, by quickly recording a video of yourself and/or your screen to demonstrate what you want doing or what you mean!

Whatever you are up to, and whatever you are planning, stay safe and look after each other and stay positive! 

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