How To Deal With Work Emails On Your Vacation

Vacations are meant to be exciting, enjoyable and stress-free. We take them to help ourselves get rid of too much work and other negative activities that might be going on. As much as it’s supposed to be relaxing and work free, do you still check and respond to your work emails on your vacation. Is this a good idea? Are we supposed to check our work emails while on vacation? I mean we take vacations to have our own quality time and checking work emails isn’t supposed to be part of the plan.

Most people still debate if it’s a good idea to check their emails while on vacation. Constant checking of emails might turn your vacation to a “workation”. It, however, depends on the kind of job you do. There are those jobs that rely heavily on you checking your emails. Here’s how to deal with work emails on your vacation;

Be Prepared Before You Go

It’s good to prepare for everything before starting your vacation. It’s important for you to clear your inbox before leaving. This will make it easier for you when you come back because you won’t have many unread emails waiting for you. Besides this, you should also talk to your team and clients in advance. Prepare them 10-15 days earlier before you leave. You should give them the number of days you’re going to be away and when you’ll be back in the company.

It’s important to also let them know that they should not email you unless it’s very important. If they have any work or requests, it’s better they send them all to you a few days before you leave. Some people put up email auto-responders before leaving. You can put an away message informing them that you won’t be checking your emails until a particular sate. You can also leave secondary contacts if you have to. This will help put your mind at ease during your vacation. Besides, you won’t have any work emails on your vacation.

Talk To Your Supervisor

Your supervisors are people above you and you should always inform them if you want to leave for your vacation. Make sure to address with them your vacation plans for both of you to be clear on what’s expected from the both of you. Also, let them know that you won’t be checking your emails when you are away. Your supervisors might be able to help you even have a better vacation if you talk to them. Leaving without informing your superiors can cause you trouble and even suspension. This shows how incompetent you are. Informing them about your vacations eases tension and worries at work.

It’s Never A Bad Thing To Just Say No

There are some people who turn off their email notifications completely. They just want to have a peaceful and enjoyable vacation. They want to take a real vacation from work and forget everything about it. These vacations might be honeymoons, spending time with family etc. Informing your employers or employees that you will not be available is not such a bad thing. No one can force you to work while on vacation if you don’t want to. This way, the company can plan in advance who will cover the company while you’re away on vacation.

Check Your Emails Every Morning

This applies to those who don’t want to completely shut themselves off their work. Waking up to your emails early in the morning is less tiring than reading them during the course of the day. During this time, most people are either still sleeping or getting ready. Any other time is tricky because this might be the time when you want to enjoy yourself. This will help you keep up with every activity going on at work and also make you feel better being away from the hassles at work. You will also be notified of any latent issues or work crisis. This helps you enjoy your vacation while still perceptive on what’s going on at work at the same time.

Creating A Bat Signal Is Important

Most bat signals come in form of a text message. Creating a bat signal ensures that you get notified of something that needs your attention immediately. A bat signal helps ease your team’s mind because they know that you will handle whatever happens immediately once you receive your text signal. This eases your mind as well because it gives you the satisfaction of knowing you’re not very far to answer urgent emails. If you end up not receiving any, then you can go ahead and enjoy your vacation.

Evaluate The Narrowing Points

This means that you should not pose questions with no clear next steps.Instead, ask questions and provide the possible solutions to it. This will help you avoid keeping your staff from waiting for a long time for you to offer them a solution. This will also help them carry on with their posts more effectively than having to pose on everything and wait for you to come up with a solution. This ensures you minimize reading your work emails on your vacation.

Do Not Feel Guilty

If you decide not to check your work emails on vacation, there’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to feel guilty about not checking with the office. You have been working hard all this time and that’s why this vacation is important to you. Don’t worry about other people and only focus on your vacation. This way, you won’t have to worry about feeling guilty for not checking your work emails on your vacation.