Vacation Recovery Plan (VRP)

We hope you had, are having or will be having a great summer vacation. When you get back to “reality” you can be sure, unless you plan very well, that there will be backlogs of emails, vmails, meetings and project work that will need to be addressed “immediately” upon your return.
The key to an easy transition back to your business routines is to address and eliminate the expected (and perhaps some unexpected) backlogs have that accumulated. Until you catch up on the backlog, you will not feel settled and able to work at peak performance. The only way to catch up is to “plan” to do so before you head out on vacation.
Here are the Vacation Recovery Plan (VRP) rules you need to put in place to quickly get back to normal (whatever that is):
1. Block off time on your calendar to address all of your backlogs – be specific as to what you will do and when you will do everything to reset yourself..

2. Display this catch-up time as an appointment on your electronic calendar and show that you are not available for any other meetings or activities.

3. Do not allow yourself to be dragged into a meeting of any kind your first day back.

4. Plan and commit to be caught up with everything that happened when you were away by the end of the first week back.

5. If you work in anchored space, try working remotely on your first day or two back.

6. If you are mobile working – stick to your VRP and do not give up your reset time.

7. Discuss plans with your team members and leadership weeks before you go on vacation.

8. Encourage others to also develop and stick to a VRP.

If you are the leader of a team, encourage, mentor and personally use a VRP to assure that your team is firing on all cylinders.