I’m going on vacation soon. As I get ready, I realize how important it is to schedule time off. I had no idea what kind of a winter we’d be having back in October when I scheduled a trip south for February. Now that the date has arrived, I couldn’t be happier. But, as you undoubtedly know, it takes work to go somewhere to relax.

Like hiring a cleaning lady and then organizing  your house before she comes, for a business owner going away requires getting your ducks in a row. Before leaving for this trip I made sure my marketing e-blasts were written and scheduled and that my Virtual Assistant was on top of all the upcoming activities. She’ll be my only channel of communication while I’m out of the country. I recorded my out-of-office message both on my phone and my email account. I arranged my schedule with clients around this time away. I even pre-wrote blog posts to go live during this time. It was doing double-time so that while I’m on the beach, I can do nothing.

I know how important doing nothing is. For a Type A like me, I also know what a challenge it is. Yell at me if you receive an email from me between now and March 7. Zig Ziglar advises us to let everyone know about goals that are advantaged by outside monitoring–like giving up smoking or drinking or refraining from electronics while trying to relax.

The advantage to scheduling time off is that it brings into sharp focus all that’s in front of you, forces you to prioritize and delegate or plow through. Otherwise, we all just kind of go along. When clients say they want to give a workshop or have an open house, I immediately suggest they send out the invitations. The rest will take care of itself. Did you know that the English translation of the word vacation (this is a little known fact) is actually ‘deadline’?