Schedule a Vacation

Schedule a vacation, a vacation where no one can get in touch with you at least not easily.  Leave your cell phone at home. How did you feel when you read the first sentence? Do you think it is impossible? Do you think you cannot afford to shut down your company for vacation?

If your company cannot function without you for a week then it is likely you do not have a company you are just self employed. There is nothing wrong with being self employed if you are looking for a job where you can set your own hours within reason and work without supervision. If you are self employed then the company is not earning money when you are not around to do the actual work. Doctors and dentists, for example, do the actual work that makes the company money. They may have assistants who help or even some that do some of the associated services; teeth cleaning or drawing blood, but for the most part they personally do the bulk of the work.   

If you want the company to earn money for you while you are on vacation then you need to be managing the work not doing it. You need to develop repeatable procedures and systems so the company can operate with employees who are less motivated and less skilled than you are.

If you cannot schedule a vacation because the company cannot operate without you then you need to start working on the company and not in the company so that you can.  Begin to think about what it would take to turn your business into a company that can operate without you, at least in the short term. What do you do daily and how can it happen if you are on vacation. Begin to create systems that allow your employees to perform those duties.

I always planned a weeklong vacation on a boat out in somewhere remote (I am a passionate SCUBA diver) where my cell phone would not work. To get a hold of me was a lot of work involving satellite phones.  There was never a crisis so severe that my employees had not been trained handle.  Had I been easily available by cell phone I am sure they would have consulted me.

The time away was refreshing and built my confidence my staff. It gave my employees confidence that they could handle routine problems without me. It also showed my employees the confidence I had in them.

Original content copyright 2010 Thomas Robinson