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The Art of Stress-Free PTO: Handoffs, Boundaries & Actual Rest · Unspoken Career Truths

• 0:00
  Welcome to Unspoken career Truths.
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  I'm Lauren Levec Gilbert. And I'm Cara Wood.
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  And we're here to be the Co workers you can trust.
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  In just 10 minutes, we'll cover the strategies you need, the
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  mistakes to avoid, and the insider secrets no one tells you
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  so you can show up with confidence at work.
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  Hey, Lauren. Hey, Cara.
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  Have I ever told you the big red bus?
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  Like about the big red bus? No, I mean, I know the big
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  yellow school bus, but I do not know the big red bus.
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  Well, you know what? That's because the big red bus
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  I'm referring to is in England. There are those double Decker
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  buses. And when I worked in London, I,
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  I the first project I got assigned, my Co workers asked me
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  to please, please, please don't be an American about this
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  project. What does that mean?
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  And to consider the big red bus. And the idea is that tomorrow
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  you can get hit by a big red bus and be gone.
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  But they needed me to document my project so transparently that
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  even though I'd be gone, they could still complete the
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  project. It's really funny you say that
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  though, Cara, because someone today on a phone call said to
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  me, well, what happens if you get hit by a bus?
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  And I was like, can we reframe to what happens if I win the
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  lottery because I'd prefer not to get hit by a bus?
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  It was the most liberating concept though, because you
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  could always take vacation and you could get delayed.
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  I Co workers could get delayed by vacation by one day.
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  You could pick up meetings that you weren't invited to there.
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  There was so much transparency and just picking up for other
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  people that everyone got to take a relaxing vacation.
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  And that is what I want to talk about today.
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  Ptoi love it. Yeah, especially again, we're
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  nearing the end of the year. So you know the problem.
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  We're going to talk about how do you really and truly unplug and
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  go on a relaxing break? What's hard for you Lauren,
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  about taking a guilt free PTO time?
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  The hardest part for me, quite honestly, is the amount of
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  preparation and work that you have to do to go out on vacation
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  and then the catch up after vacation.
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  I don't necessarily have as hard of a time like disconnecting on
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  vacation, but it's like the before prep and then the coming
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  back. Oh, 100%.
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  I was going to say the the mental gymnastics.
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  And I will say that everyone who's listening, listen, you
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  know that those are on you. If you're feeling that guilt,
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  decide how you want to deal with it or think about it.
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  And there's definitely some space and we're going to talk a
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  little bit about that. But I agree with you that I
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  always find myself spending a ton of time in prep mode
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  depending on how long I'm going to be out.
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  But even it almost doesn't matter if it's more than one
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  day. I feel like there's a lot of
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  thought that needs to go into it.
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  And I think there are some basics to cover first.
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  Like who do you tell that you're leaving, you're going to be out
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  and when? How early of a heads up do you
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  give them? I mean, obviously you need to
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  get approval from whatever powers be in your company.
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  Even if your company has unlimited vacation or no
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  questions asked, you're still going to want to tell your team.
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  Then there are other folks that you're going to need to tell.
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  What's your what's your sort of what's your go to Lauren like?
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  I'm curious what your out of office style is?
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  Or are there other places that you put reminders for folks that
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  you're going to be out? I'm glad you asked because I
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  actually started this new thing with my out of office.
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  So usually you're out of office as like I will be out of office
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  from X to X and I'll get back to you in your return.
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  I started using it as like an opportunity to share content
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  too, because people are reading you're out of office, right?
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  So what I actually do is I say like I'm out of office from
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  blank to blank. But while I'm out, why don't you
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  read this like new research report that I published or like
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  listen to this new podcast. So I actually made my out of
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  offices like a a bit more fun, I guess I could say an interactive
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  and I've gotten like a really a lot of really great feedback
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  about it because it offers something as well as like
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  telling you that I'm out of office.
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  So I always make sure that I put that on and then I always block
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  my calendar and I always make sure I decline meetings.
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  That's like a very big pet peeve of mine.
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  If someone goes out on vacation but they don't like decline any
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  of the meetings or delete the meetings that were on their
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  calendars just because then you don't know if they're coming.
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  Maybe you didn't know they were out of office or so just like
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  clean up your calendar isn't like my advice?
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  Yes, and if you own any of those calendar invites.
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  Transfer them. Hand them over to somebody so
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  that they can either start the virtual meeting or change the
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  meeting if it needs to be changed 100%.
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  That is one of those things that can easily fall through the
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  crack. I actually have like a little
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  checklist for myself to sort of follow.
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  I'm a big fan of the of the like on brand fun out of offices
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  because to your point, people are reading them.
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  So you might as well give them a sense of your personality or a
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  sense of something that you want to share with them.
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  And then I also, well, yeah, exactly captive audience.
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  And then I also think it's really important to like make
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  some time is if you, especially if you're going to be out in in
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  a situation where someone's covering responsibilities,
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  either because there is a standing meeting that's
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  happening or someone's taking over for a couple of your
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  projects. Like make time with them to go
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  over whatever you're handing them so that they can ask you
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  questions and you guys actually have some time instead of sort
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  of racing out the door. I think that's a great point.
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  Like and sit down with your team, sit down with your
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  manager, like prep them beforehand.
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  Like, like I said, there's a lot of work that gets involved, but
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  that extra legwork enables you to really kind of enjoy your
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  full vacation. Yeah.
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  And then I, I think I have a lot of things like for when you are
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  especially on a project, like a project or several projects, you
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  want to sort of create owners, make sure that whoever has the
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  lead now on your project has the contacts information.
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  They have the contacts, they have some of the materials or at
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  least access or like a CHEAT SHEET to where those materials
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  live. And then one of my favorite
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  things to do is actually set expectations of like, here's
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  the, you know, bare minimum that I want to happen, but then these
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  would be some wins. And I actually really like to
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  like give people that range because you don't really know
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  what's going to happen in their week, especially if they're
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  covering out of like nicety. It's like, hey, if you could
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  just keep the lights on, like this is what that would look
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  like is a really valuable way to sort of like level set.
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  And then to be like, OK, these are the things that would really
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  move it forward. The other thing I also do is
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  like I usually make if I'm going out for like a long time and I
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  mean like 2 plus weeks, I make like a dock and I include
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  everything in the dock and then I put a space at the end that
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  says like things for Lauren to know when she gets back.
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  So like I put a place where people can add like hey, this
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  happened or like make sure you read this or like this e-mail is
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  really important and like it just makes it easy.
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  So when you come back on day one, you have a place that you
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  can go to see what you need to catch up on and what's the most
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  urgent. So like if you set that for
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  them, it's easier for them to then figure out how they
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  communicate with you. 100% I'm so glad you mentioned that
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  because I do really think that one of the, the final key to
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  like a good stress free PTO that you can really enjoy is already
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  setting up your return. And that is like, OK, what kind
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  of notes am I going to come back to?
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  How much time am I going to give myself to like look at my
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  emails? I know a lot of people that like
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  to read their emails even when they're out of office, and I
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  think that's perfectly fine to do If you're not, if you aren't
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  going to reply and if it's going to make you feel better, if
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  you're like, all right, I'm plugged in a little bit.
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  There is also some call and I would advocate for this myself
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  where you just the day before you're about to return or you
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  build into your morning of that first return that that's what
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  you're going to do. I actually like to put like the
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  checkpoint meeting back with either my manager or whoever's
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  taking over for my project. So that's my first couple of
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  days. I've got my key meetings to like
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  hear what I missed and then other than that I'm also
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  blocking some of my time just to catch up with whatever else I've
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  missed. I love that.
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  I'm so rule of thumb for me is like I always block my calendar
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  like the first half of the day, the day I get back.
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  So if I like get back on the Monday, I block my calendar
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  until like 12:30 or so so that I can like catch up and feel good
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  and then go into meetings. Because if you don't do that and
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  you go straight into meetings, it can be kind of like, it just
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  be a lot, right? Because you're like figuring
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  things out, you're trying to catch up and like it just can be
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  challenging. And the other thing that sparked
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  when you were talking is like, say you're a manager and you're
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  on PTO. You might be reading emails and
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  you decide to respond, understand the expectation that
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  that sets for your team. And if you want that to be the
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  expectation, like I think that's something really important to
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  think about. If you really want to encourage
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  your team to like shut down and go on PTO and not focus on
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  e-mail, like that's the behavior that you also want to exude.
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  I mean, same for team members, right?
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  Like make sure you're setting the expectation that you want
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  because if you've done that already, people might assume
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  that you do it in the future and you might not want that.
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  So I think just think about it, especially if you do like to
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  read e-mail on vacation, which is fine.
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  Just know you're setting an expectation.
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  Absolutely. I almost think that you can
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  think about that in what you put in your out of office as well.
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  I know people who put cell phone numbers and out of offices and
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  you don't have to. You might want to give your cell
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  phone to the one person who would actually call you in an
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  emergency. That seems reasonable or hey,
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  no, I trust my team and they know the difference between
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  emergency and not. But in and out of office, that
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  means anyone who's emailed you might not have your cell phone
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  number and that might not be what you want.
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  And again, like, what expectation do you want to set?
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  I love that even for weekends, the whole e-mail like managers
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  replying to emails over the weekend.
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  I had a manager who actually used to time their responses to
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  emails and I like that so much better.
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  So maybe I'd get a flood of emails on Monday morning,
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  knowing that he had looked at emails over the weekend but they
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  weren't in my inbox until Monday morning.
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  And that, that's pretty nice. I do that a lot, like if I have
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  to work a weekend or something or like maybe I'm traveling and
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  I'm on a plane and I have time. Like I will schedule send for
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  like 8:00 AM on Monday. I think it makes a big
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  difference. Yeah, well, hopefully all of
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  this helps folks take, you know, a breath.
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  And I think the key thing is like your PTO is authentic to
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  you. So also what you want your sort
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  of work life balance to be. But Lauren, to your point,
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  that's going to reflect back on who you work with, what their
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  expectations are, what they think their behavior should be.
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  So, you know, courteous basics where you're covering your
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  bases, you're giving people the information that they needed.
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  You're setting up projects in a way that they can succeed and
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  they can succeed at A, at a minimum, like set those
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  minimums, set those reach goals, and then set yourself up for
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  like a really good return and have a return day plan where
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  you're like giving yourself a little bit of an ease back in.
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  Because we all know how hard it is to sort of return from a
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  vacation and sort of dive back into the work.
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  But have fun, go on vacation, enjoy.
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  Yes, go on lots of vacation. And that's a wrap.
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  Thanks for joining us on Unspoken Career Truths.
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  Don't forget to follow us on Spotify and Instagram.
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