Unplugging for a Summer Break

It’s that time of year when some of us will take a break and perhaps get away for a much-deserved summer break.

As you wind things down and pack your swimming items, let’s not forget to cover the basics to help you unplug from the grid and have some enjoyable time off.

Let’s run through some pointers relating to your computer systems, which will help you have a more relaxing time away from the daily grind.

Turn on your out-of-office and give clear instructions whilst you’re off

First of all, don’t forget to simply turn on your out-of-office message on your email, for the period of time that you’re off. We recommend that you turn it on the day before you go away, and leave it for a day when you return, to buy yourself some time and get some breathing space.

As part of your out-of-office messaging, give clear instructions as to what to do in your absence. For example, you could have a clear message that you won’t see the email, and call person X if it relates to Accounts, and call person Y if it relates to Operations. You need to hand over as much work as possible whilst you’re away, rather than have it all build up into an overwhelming mess on your return. If you’re feeling really brave (and this isn’t for the faint-hearted), you could set an email rule (and message) that deletes all email your receive whilst you’re off, and simply ask people to resend on your return. We dare you.

Turn your computer completely off

The amount of computers we see left running twenty fours a day is worrying. There’s simply no need for it, and they’re not designed to be run in this way. When you’re away, there is no good reason to leave it on. Turn it off, completely (not sleep mode) and unplug it from the power socket. It will give your computer a break, whilst you’re having a break, and it will save you some money in electricity costs.

Remove work-related apps from your phone

Now, really, you should turn your phone off, and leave it off whilst you’re off work. We also appreciate, we get a lot of pushback when we encourage people to do this, so how about removing anything related to work from your phone? If you have social media apps for example, and people know you’re away from your email, they will try and message you via Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn etc. If you remove the apps from your phone whilst you’re away, then you won’t be disturbed by messages asking how you change the font size in Microsoft Word (real-world Lucid example).

You can go further, and set your phone so it’s in Do Not Disturb mode, with only your family/starred contacts able to call you which results in your phone vibrating (because no one uses actual noises on their phone do they?).

Again, we appreciate this sounds crazy to many people, but we urge you, just try it out. The world will keep spinning. Promise.

We hope that gives you some food for thought and makes any time off more enjoyable for you.

Gavin Moorhouse is the owner of Lucid Computer Solutions, an IT Support Business serving the Worcestershire area. He wrote this article with his phone turned off whilst in a cave.