Stress-Free Vacation Planning
Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 9:05PM | Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D. 
If you’re like many others, getting ready for a summer vacation can be a very stressful time, which can take the fun out of a much-needed break. If you’re on vacation countdown, try these five steps to feel more organized and prepared.
1. Write down the names of every major “project” – whether personal, professional or school-related. During this summer season, your list may look something like this. It’s a mix of work, personal and school. And, as you’re preparing to be away from work and school for 10 days, you’re feeling under the gun.
Work
- Write meeting summary and distribute to attendees
- Research cost and features of new phone systems for office
- Edit memo Ed sent and forward to Chris
- Write agenda for weekly team meeting and distribute
- Return calls from Outcast Media and Calventure
Summer vacation
- Confirm airline reservations.
- Check on rental car.
- Send emails to Aunt Linda about hotel in San Diego
- Buy travel guide to Southern California
- Cancel paper
- Make reservations at dog kennel
Part-time MBA program
- Paper on micro-economics, due Friday – 12-15 pages.
- Read chapters 3&4 – Business Management
2. Estimate how much time each task will take. Write down your time estimate next to each task. Then schedule each task (work tasks during work hours, lunch hour for personal phone calls related to vacation; school and personal tasks during after work hours).
3. Then, organize your tasks according to deadline.
- If you’re leaving on vacation at the end of the week, your vacation plans are high on the list. Set aside an hour, and you’ll be able to knock off all 6 items that have been nagging you for the past week.
- Look at your work items, and check off those that MUST be completed before you leave. Set aside specific times at work to complete each MUST-DO item this week. Schedule the others after your return.
- Set aside Thursday night for packing if you depart on Saturday. Then turn in your paper on Friday, and you’re ready for your trip with a fairly clean slate!
- Look at your school items. Your paper is due Friday - which means you need to set aside specific chunks of time to complete it. Mark off 3-4 hours on Mon., Tues., and Wed. nights to complete your paper.
4. Look for extra little “corners” of time to get tasks done. For example, if you’re flying to California, you’ve got at least 8 hours of flight time going out and back for you to read your assigned chapters for class and to write some of the memos and summaries that will be due when you get back.
5. Set aside a regular (but LIMITED) amount of time each day to keep up with email. That way, your re-entry will be smoother and less stressful.
Reader Comments (3)
New (5): If you work in a team, ask a trusted colleague to check your email once a day and delete all the spam and routine messages that don't need any attention. You can do the same for her when she's on vacation - schedule 15 minutes a day for it - then less time is needed during your vacation if you must keep up, and it makes the first day back a lot less scary.
these blog posts are always interesting, what would make them really great for me, would be seeing this example actually placed in skoach as a 'live' sample of how to use skoach. I do get how skoach works and i am using it, but as a visual person who tends to 'copy' best practise it would be useful to see skoach in action. I am always wondering how other people actually use skoach, what their tabs look like, how they shedule, how much details .. that kind of thing. Like copyign homework i guess?!
I love your idea, Freda. Just wanted to add a suggestion: do _not_ give your coworker your email password. Even if you trust them completely, their computer or their network could be compromised, or they might get caught by an elaborate phishing scam. Instead, create a temporary email account at gmail or some other service, and set your work email to forward there. This greatly limits the damage an attacker could do.
A simpler method I've used is to set an autoresponse with my vacation information and an emergency email address that forwards to my trusted coworker. This creates less work for the person helping you, though it might not work if your urgent emails are often from lists or automated sources.