Tips for a Notification-Free Vacation

Think about it. When was the last time you went on a vacation and didn’t check your phone every two minutes? Let’s face it. We’ve become addicted to technology, and believe it or not, it actually contributes to our stress. When you take a vacation, you want to relax and distance yourself from everything. However, we end up coming back with our stress levels off the charts, feeling like we never left for a vacation.

Taking a vacation is extremely important for many reasons. You might think that taking a vacation is taking you away from work, and important responsibilities, but you would be wrong.

Vacation increases your productivity.

It might be hard to grasp at first, but facts are facts. Taking some quality time off actually helps increase your productivity, creativity, and overall performance. Various research have shown that people avoid taking a vacation because they are afraid they’ll come back to a mountain of work, and might miss out on bonuses and promotions. This causes their stress levels to go up, and in the end, backfires. If you’re avoiding vacation, you’re actually doing yourself, and your job, harm.

Taking a vacation will affect your productivity positively, and you’ll come back refreshed and ready to take on any challenges that might appear. It will definitely boost your creativity, which will leave you with some new ideas, and better work performance. In the end, the most important thing is that you’re well-rested. However, by constantly checking our phones or laptops during our vacation, we’re achieving the complete opposite effect.

With that being said:

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But, how to distract ourselves from work and everything else while on vacation? It definitely is a hard task, but the good thing is that it’s completely doable with some planning.

Can you even remember when was the last time you went on a vacation and didn’t check your work inbox or Slack at all? If you’re having difficulty recalling, this article is definitely for you.

Let your team members know you’ll be away.

The day before you leave for your vacation, make sure you let everyone know that you will be away and that you will be completely out of touch for that time period.

Make sure you let your team members know for how long you will be away, what you’ve been working on before you left, who they can contact if something urgent comes up, and exactly when you will be back.

However, in order to make sure everything is done before your notification-free vacation, start letting everyone know about it weeks in advance. That way, everyone will be prepared and any issue they might have will be done before you leave.

Set up an OOO email.

Automatic out-of-office replies are G-O-L-D. Why should you set one up before you leave?

Well, if you don’t, you’ll be checking your email every hour just in case you receive anything important and urgent. In order to avoid this, be sure you set up an OOO email before you leave.

When it comes to automatic out-of-office replies, the most important information you should give out is for how long you will be out of the office, and who they should contact if there’s an emergency.

This way, you’ll be sure that if anything important comes up, it will be taken care of, and you don’t have anything to worry about. You can enjoy your notification-free vacation without any worry, and unnecessary email checks.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to create awesome OOO email messages, we suggest trying out our completely free OOO Email Generator, and you’ll have your perfect OOO email within seconds.

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Turn off your notifications.

And lastly, turn off your notifications. We live in a magical era of technology and everything is possible. So, why not use it properly? When you leave for your notification-free vacation, make sure you turn off all of your notifications.

Even though you decide you will not be checking your work inbox, Slack, or other chat platforms, all it takes is one notification and you’re back at it. Make sure you turn off all notifications and even delete some apps you know are tempting.

Taking a vacation is extremely important for your physical and mental health, as well as for your job performance. Before you leave, make sure you’re not bringing any distractions with you, and you’ll surely return well-rested and ready to take on any new challenges.

Also, make sure that you read our article about how to disconnect from work when on vacation.