12 tips on how to flow into your break more smoothly and replenish your energy.
You probably have had those vacations where you’ve sprinted to the finish line. Just before leaving, you send out the last emails and tick off the last to-dos. Even when you’d finished everything, it took 2-3 days to be able to relax on your holiday.
That’s partly because of less than ideal planning. But also, a bad routine of shutting down.
Here are 12 things to do, to properly shut down before a big break, so you actually get to enjoy the break. Not merely prevent yourself from going over the edge of burnout.
What it is
1.
The main point of a shutdown routine is to be able to leave work with no loose ends. Everything is taken care of. All projects are set and will be waiting for you when you get back.
That way your mind can let go of the need to keep loops running, remind you of to-dos and keep everything at the ready for you. Because of a system, it can trust that it doesn’t have to keep working.
2.
You can do this before any break, small or big (but tune it accordingly). Before the evening, before the weekend, and before a long summer break.
3.
In a sense, a shutdown routine is a mirror version of your daily, weekly, or quarterly reviews. In those, you look at your goals and your projects and plan everything that needs to happen to move things forward.
At its most basic, in a shutdown routine, you:
Check all the to-dos that are left of the day or in your inbox, and reschedule the coming days to make it fit (or decide not to do things).
Look at all your meeting notes of the day/week/sprint and put important things to remember in your notes system or to-do list.
Go through your email inbox and snooze emails to the day you will handle them, and/or create tasks from them.
Log your hours or anything else you track.
This way, everything done is organized, and you get back the next day, week, or month with a clear sense of what you need to do.
If you do this daily, this takes 5-10 minutes and makes a big difference. Also, when you do it daily, the weekly or quarterly ones are quick as well.
Following below are extra extensions to this simple framework that improve on it; especially before taking a longer break like a long holiday or sabbatical.
How to do it well
4.
This may sound excessive, but your shut-down protocol starts a month before your longer break.
When you sit down a month in advance, you go through all your goals and projects and plan everything you need to do before you leave. Look at the weeks/month after you get back, how do you want to be able to get back to your work?
This way you can prepare well and prevent the intense last-minute push to get everything done.
What needs to be finished before your break?
Who needs to know about your break? People you work with, employees, clients, etc.
What needs to be handed over to others so they take over for you while you’re away? What needs to be put into motion so there’s progress when you’re not there?
What information and login codes need to be shared? Who needs to be connected to each other? Is everyone equipped to continue the work?
5.
The week before you leave, you check what you still want or need to get done. This is the reality-check. Can you actually get everything done? Or will some things have to wait?
And, you schedule everything you will do right after your holiday.
Make sure, however, that you don’t plan your weeks after your vacation completely full.
Leave room for surprise insights that happen on your vacation when your mind is in a different state.
New realizations about what’s important to you. Or things about your work you really don’t want to go back to. New ideas to explore that require some time.
6.
Don’t schedule hard or difficult conversations with potential drastic outcomes the last 2 days before you leave. You don’t want that energy with you on your break (h/t to Freek).
7.
When you hand over parts of your work, are you sure you’ve equipped them well so they can do it?
To make sure, have people start doing it a week early. That way they have real experience with it and can ask questions that (will!) come up before you leave.
Much smoother than the alternative of potentially doing it poorly, and the potential of getting messages with questions on your holiday. (h/t to Tobias)
Fun details
8.
You can make your out-of-office both productive and fun. Of course, set expectations when you’ll be away and add the folks you want them to contact instead of you.
But you can also add things you want to share with folks. And, you can send some fun links. Or videos or past work so they don’t miss you as much.
Send me an email in a week, if you need inspiration. I won’t reply myself though ;).
9.
Schedule your out-of-office 2-3 days before you actually leave. That way, last-minute emails that drop more to-do’s in your lap fall in that OOO-period. This gives you the option to postpone them (h/t to Tobias again).
And, schedule it 2-3 days longer than your actual break, so nobody expects answers the first days you get back.
10.
Honor the transition. You need time to switch back to a work context.
Block your calendar that first day (especially when you share your calendar) so nobody schedules meetings then. You need that day, just for the context-switch and going through all your inboxes. (h/t to Freek again)
11.
Right before you leave, clean up your phone. It’s hard to actually be on a break when your phone keeps pulling you back into work mode.
Go further than just turning off notifications and removing the apps from your home screen.
Delete all your apps for communication or are work-related in any way. And, just as important, delete those for entertainment and quick dopamine hits.
If you want quieter, longer, and deeper thoughts, get all the quick bites that interrupt those out of your environment.
The higher the hurdle to browse, the more likely it is you won’t.
Make it a brick that navigates and takes pictures. Perhaps keep the apps for running, music, and the weather.
Some details:
WhatsApp is tricky, of course, you might want to stay in touch with loved ones. A trick here is to archive all conversations, and unarchive just those few people.
You can’t delete Safari/Chrome, so you can’t really prevent yourself from browsing (which you might need to do for planning during your holiday). But put it away in a folder far away and delete your bookmarks to favorite websites.
Email is another tricky one because you might need information in reservation emails etc. that will make you open your inbox. But, no excuses. You can print those before you leave (remember paper?), or save the files in the cloud. Or, you can set up a separate email address just for such accounts, or to forward such emails to. And this is then the one email address that’s on your phone.
Here’s an interview with Aaron Mirck with plenty of tips about phone use during your holiday (in Dutch).
12.
As I said, the protocol starts a month earlier. And if all goes well, the weeks before and after, you are already not fully productive.
That means a break of 3 weeks, actually takes 4. A break of 6 weeks actually takes 8. Take this into account when you have your yearly strategy session (contact me if you don’t already do that, we can schedule a day in August!).
Come to think of it, I’m a month late with this post! Expect a republish in 11 months.
