I was off the grid for a week. I was spending a week camping on the beach with my wife and 3 boy’s . I had very limited cell phone reception and even more limited internet connection.

So I let it all go for a week. 

I’ll admit it – I found it hard to let it go. I always had  a nagging sense that I was missing something. I also have people that report directly to me and I felt like I was letting them down by not responding to them.

I’m also a fanatic about keeping my inbox processed but this past week I just let it go. As an FYI –  It’s taken me a week to get it back in shape.

It was really hard to not look at my email and it  left me with some anxiety about what I was missing. The first couple days of the work were really the most disconcerting.

By mid-week I started to let it go mentally. I figured by this time it was too late to worry about what was happening from Monday and I would be back in the office in a couple days so none of it mattered now anyway.

I wish I could have turned my brain off earlier in the week, but I had trouble doing it.

So what did I miss and what messes did I come back to – very little!

Here’s why:

• Team – You need a great team around you. In any business this is true. Setup systems and have them in place so that you can walk away for a week and not have your absence cause the demise of your organization.
• Loose ends – Take care of any lose ends before you go. If you have a deadline make sure you get the work done. This means have a system where you keep track of your commitments.
• Let everyone know – Call and talk with people that your are working with. Let everyone you can think of know you are going on vacation. Give them about a weeks notice and make sure they know the exact dates. More than a weekend they forget, less then a week and they may hit you with something right before you are walking out the door.
• Set those auto replies – I think it’s far better to let people know exactly when you are out and also when you are going to be back in the office. Don’t rely on trying to scan your email box for important emails while on vacation. The worst thing would be to get wrapped up into a conversation with a client when you don’t have all the data or documents you need to reference. Or worse starting a conversation then not finishing it with them.

Have you taken time off recently how long did it take you to let it go, if you could. Let’s talk more about this on Twitter.