MBA1809 5 Tips To Prepare To Step Away For a Break

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Break coming up can be exciting, and for many of us, we're really burnt out by that point, so we really need it. But you might be setting yourself up for sort of a waste of a vacation if you're worrying about the business the whole time you're supposed to be relaxing or worse, something bad happens while you're gone. So I'm going to share with you my five tips on how to mitigate all that and have an enjoyable break. How to prepare so when you step away, you can step away fully confident things are going to be alright. The whole point of this, and I've designed this for myself, is so that you can shut off your work brain so you can actually enjoy your break. You can relax, you can recharge those batteries so when you get back you can hit the ground running, ready to go. So let's start with tip number one, and that's plan in advance and get ahead. No matter what you do in your business, there are a lot of tasks that you can batch and do in advance. Whether that's writing blog posts and scheduling them to publish on a certain day, recording podcast episodes like this, even marketing campaigns, email newsletters. These all can be done in advance, like the actual content, but then you can also schedule it with your email email marketing software. You can even schedule your tweets and your Facebook posts using something like Buffer. And with WordPress, you can schedule blog posts to publish on a certain day or time. These tools were built for a reason. Utilize them. So I like before I'm going to go on a break, I like to get ahead with all my work. So basically I'm doing, let's say, the week that I'm going to be off, I'll do all that week's work in advance. So it's all done and dusted, scheduled to go. I am fully confident Everything's going to be fine and I'm doing this and I have a team, so I even have people to look after that and make sure that everything goes okay. But even if I didn't, because I didn't have a team when I first started it, all is fine, thanks to software. But more importantly, I'm planning in advance. I'm making sure that everything is done in advance. I've done the work, I've scheduled things, I've gotten ahead. So I don't feel like when I get back I got all the this work I have to do. I gotta catch up. No, there's no catching up. Everything was done in advance. I have automated it to go out and publish and to be released while I'm, you know, relaxing, sipping on a nice cold drink or something. So planning and getting ahead is important. One way to do this is look at what would you be doing if you did not go on break for that week. Let's say, for example, what are all the tasks you could do beforehand and have them scheduled to go out or publish or be released or start working when you're gone? Tip number two, one of the ways you can avoid a disaster while you're gone, where you have a code red and the company is in dire need for your help, is to not have any high stakes activities happening while you're on break. Do all that stuff when you're around. But when I'm on break, I purposely make sure the whole team knows, hey, we're going to do low stake tasks while I'm gone. What this means is that we're not going to be releasing any major code changes to our software while I'm gone. Why am I going to risk that? Even though we have a great cto, we have everything going on from. If there's any kind of high level decisions that might be needed due to a high stake move, I'm going to avoid it completely. Let's just not do that while I'm gone so I don't have to worry about it. You could take it to another level if you wanted to. And if you run a software company like me and say no deployments, don't deploy any code at all, just keep things as they are and you can deploy updates when I'm, when I come back. But I don't take it to that level because we have a great team, they deploy all the time without me being on top of them. We have a fantastic cto, it's all under control. But I'm not comfortable with any major changes to our product while I'm gone. I want to be around for that launch. I want to be able to even just make some snap decisions or get some snap feedback from customers. So to put my mind at ease, no high stake moves while I'm on break. Maybe that will change in the future, but for now, this is what allows me to relax. Tip number three, if you have a team, even if this one more person or a virtual assistant or somebody pass the keys to somebody else, have somebody next in charge, this is actually really good because it's an opportunity for them to, to have some extra responsibility to be groomed a little bit about how to be the ultimate decision maker when the ultimate decision maker is not around. What if you have to go to hospital? What if you're sick? What if you have a family emergency? You are unable to be contacted. You need to start preparing somebody for those moments or to groom them to have more responsibility. And that's why I always have somebody next in charge. For me and Nicole, when we go off, it's our cto and basically we tell the whole team, hey, if there's a major decision or choice that needs to be made, go ahead and ask this person. They're in charge. They have the keys to the castle while we're gone. This puts you at ease. Why? Because now nobody's being blocked. Everything can be decided even when you're gone. And this person you trust, and you'll have one person that will contact you if something goes wrong. And that's the next tip. Kind of getting ahead of myself here. But that person will be the person that will communicate with you if you need any communication that is needed due to emergency. But overall, what I love about this strategy is you are building a business that's not dependent on you. So when you're gone, somebody else can take care of things, make decisions while you're recharging your batteries. And guess what? The opposite happens all the time. When my CTO is on break and there's some tech decisions that need to be made, I'm stepping in, I'm helping out as much as I can. And if for any reason there's a problem I can't solve, I know how to contact him. And I'm the person that contacts him, not everybody in the company, so that he can relax and recharge his batteries. Number four, an emergency protocol. Set up an emergency protocol. What happens if there is an emergency that requires your input, requires your decision? For us, we have a very simple emergency protocol. Number one, if there's an emergency, contact our cto. They're the person that's in charge when we're not around. If you can't contact them, they're usually somebody else you can talk to just in case. Now, even with a person that's in charge while you're gone, we have a protocol where it's like, hey, don't send me messages on Slack or Basecamp or any of our tools. I will not be checking these things because I'm supposed to be on vacation, right? So I don't, I don't check those things. I don't check email. Those things are off. Those notifications are off my phone. And basically if there's an emergency, they just call me on good old fashioned phone, right? They call my phone number. And if I get a phone call, I know there is something I need to step in and help with. But if I don't get a phone call, that means everything's fine, they're taking care of things. I don't need to be privy of every decision, every single conversation. I want to show off my notifications. Some people do this. Some people even use WhatsApp where it's like, you can call me on WhatsApp just in case, you know, the international type of charging of phone calls, or they can send a WhatsApp message and you can keep your WhatsApp open, but have some sort of protocol if there is an emergency to make you feel like, hey, if there's something going wrong, you will hear about it. If you're not hearing anything, that means everything's fine. Number five, and this one's a little bit controversial. Some people feel that this is not necessary. For me, this is more of a peace of mind. You may not use it, and most of the time I never use it. But tip number five is bring your equipment. Now, for me, my equipment is my laptop, which is very lightweight, very easy to carry. And I'm usually using my laptop when I go on break anyway to search restaurants or things to do. And for me, equipment also means a mic, because if there's some sort of emergency with a podcast, we need to change an episode. Something happens. Sometimes you can only perceive what could happen. But I bring a mic just in case and I can record if there's an emergency. Even though I got ahead and everything, there are sometimes emergencies that happen and it's happened to me before on break and I'm so glad that I brought a mic. So bring at least a laptop. If your business is online and you work on, on online using your laptop. But the point here is that it's just there as a safety mechanism. You're not required to use it don't work. That's where you have to really hold yourself back. But I actually just have my laptop in my bag just in case. It gives me a peace of mind that, hey, I'm gonna go on break, I can enjoy myself, nothing's gonna happen. If there's an emergency and I'm required to help, I have my equipment, I'm good to go. Peace of mind.

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To wrap up today's lesson, you need to recharge your batteries. You need to feel refreshed, you need rest so you can come back and go at it hard. But if you're taking a break and your mind is still at work and you're still thinking about things and you're still stressed out because you didn't plan this breakout well and you don't have a plan, it's pretty much a waste of time and money. You come back feeling exhausted. This is an investment in your business. When you feel good, when you feel recharged, when you feel clear minded, you're able to contribute better ideas, better solutions and propel your business forward. So take on these tips and start planning your next break right now. That's your homework. Look at the calendar. When are you going to take the next week or two weeks off and start implementing the tips I outlined today? Thanks so much for listening. If you love the show, leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review. We'd love to hear what you think of the show, what your favorite episode is, when you listen, how you listen. We read every single review, so thank you so much in advance for that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Many of us love our business so much, we can't help but think about work. And there's nothing wrong with thinking about work even when you're on break. Don't fight it. If you find yourself talking about it or things like that, that's okay. A lot of great ideas. I get most of my great ideas that I get for the business come when I'm on holiday, when I'm on vacation, because I have a chance to reflect and think and prioritize what's important. So I'm not one to say don't talk about work or think about work. If it happens, it happens. But don't stress. That's what you want to stay away from. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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