My Out of Office Template
One of the things that I’m not shy about in my life and work is time off. I love travel and culture; and frankly, I also love breaks when I don’t have to use my brain. I’ve found that in my Ellevated Outcomes work, this time off for rest is an absolute requirement to work at the level I need to.
Many people assume that when you own your own business (especially if you’re the face of it) that you always have to be on and connected. They believe that your computer must follow your travels.
I respectfully disagree.
It takes a lot of organization, planning, and frankly: confidence. If you’ve structured your business well and approach your time off proactively, it’s entirely possible to vacation and leave your work behind. In fact, I’d go so far to say that you’re doing your team, your clients, and the future of your business a disservice if it truly can’t survive without you.
Here’s my exact OOO process and templates, if you’d like to see…
Vacation T-2 Weeks…
First, be excited!
Second, share your excitement with colleagues and clients. Not in a gloaty way, of course – but in an “I’m so lucky that I get to go to ___________ way.” If you’re a good boss, teammate, and business person, the people around you will be excited for you and want to help while you’re away.
You’re enrolling them in your joy, and you’re also planting the verbal of awareness: you’re giving them a heads up that you’ll be away.
Vacation T-1 Week…
Proactively communicate, in writing to those affected, the dates that you’ll be away.
Here’s the exact email that I save in my Outlook templates and send:
Dear Wonderful Colleagues and Clients,
I wanted to let you know that I’m going to be out of the office next week, <beginning date> through <end date.>
I like to make sure that you know ahead of time, in case there’s anything you need (that I don’t already know about). Please let me know in the next 24 hours so that I can make it a priority to support you this week.
As most of you know, when I take time away from work, I don’t check my email; however, I’m always happy to take a phone call if something comes up that you’d like to discuss. My number’s below, should you need anything.
Because I’m a planner, I usually know what I need to do to tie up loose client ends in the coming days. However, this email does usually create a 2-3 requests to complete before I leave, which is no problem. I asked for it!
Vacation Eve!
The afternoon of my last day in the office (usually around 3PM), I put up my out of office email. The timing of this is important. If last minute, non-critical emails come in, I don’t want to feel obligated to respond while I’m supposed to be riding into the sunset. Here’s what that template looks like:
Hello there,
Thank you for your email. I’m currently away from the office and will return on <date.>
If you need something urgently, you’re welcome to give me a call at <my phone number.> Otherwise, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible, upon my return.
Thank you for your support!
Here’s the not-so-secret trick: once you put up this OOO, you can’t respond! The precedent that you set here is really important. If you reply, people are going to expect you to continue replying while you’re away.
And note too that I like giving people the option of calling me. You don’t have to, but it works well because people don’t pick up the phone unless they need to. It’s easy to shoot off an email without thought, so many people do so out of (excuse my directness) laziness. But it seems to take most people effort to pick up the phone. Therefore, they don’t unless they actually need something.
In my time of practicing this over the past 18 months, I’ve received one call while in Hawaii and a call one time on a Saturday eve (I don’t check emails on the weekend either). Both calls were financial-related and important, so I’m so glad that these two called to enlist immediate help. I’m always delighted to hear someone’s voice; and typically we can solve whatever their block is that one call, as opposed to 5 back and forth emails.
One of my interior design clients recently went through this process before her vacation, and she reported back to me how great it felt. For the first time in years, she wasn’t trying to hide her time away from the office. And furthermore, her clients are encouraging and for her to take time off.
image from coco kelley