How to make your summer holiday actually restful
Many people find that even when they are relaxing on a sunbed, their thoughts keep drifting back to unfinished work tasks, open questions, and that one email they feel they should quickly check.
Truly switching off is not a luxury. It is what lets you come back sharper than when you left. Here are a few ideas on how to take a break that actually leaves you feeling rested.
Get ahead of it
A relaxed holiday starts at least a week before it begins. Look at what is truly urgent and what can easily wait until you return. Very often, the task that feels like a “must do before I leave” turns out, on a second look, to be something that can wait until you are back.
Write down whatever you are leaving unfinished. Do this not just for yourself, but for the people who will need to handle it while you are away. A clear handover means you are not carrying a to-do list around in your head for your whole holiday.
And write it clearly enough that it still makes sense to you afterwards. After a good break, your own notes can look like someone else wrote them.
Make sure things keep running without you
Summer tests how well an organisation runs without its key people. They are often away at the same time, but the critical work does not stop with them. Whether it is finance, HR, or anything else that keeps the business going, this worry about continuity is one of the biggest reasons holidays end up only half taken — with people quietly checking work from their deckchair.
Make sure nothing depends on one person alone. If only one person knows how to handle a key task, their time off becomes a risk for the whole team. Arrange cover and clear permissions in advance, not at the last minute with the person who is already heading out the door.
It is also a good chance to see how well things run on their own. When the key people are away, the systems that work well get a chance to prove it — and the weak spots become easier to see. If the summer shows a place where an extra pair of hands would really help, it is worth acting on. An experienced interim professional, for example, can step in to keep things running, flexibly and scaled to exactly what you need.
Once continuity is covered, everyone can switch off properly.
Stay alert to scams
Summer is, unfortunately, also a busy season for scammers. With managers away and stand-ins handling daily tasks, a fake invoice or an urgent-sounding message “from the boss” can get through more easily. AI has made these scams more convincing than ever.
Before the holidays start, agree on a clear process for handling any payment request that looks unusual. This helps you avoid surprises.
Turn off notifications
Constantly checking your email and messages keeps work on your mind, even when you are not doing anything. Turn off notifications during your holiday and move work apps out of sight. Set an out-of-office reply that clearly says when you are back and who to contact in the meantime.
If switching off completely feels impossible, make a deal with yourself: one short check-in, for example once a week — and otherwise, leave it alone.
Let your mind clear
You do not unwind on the first day. The first few days usually go to simply slowing down, and only after that does the mind truly settle. This is exactly why short, broken-up breaks do not restore you the way one longer stretch does. Give yourself permission to do nothing useful at all.
Checklist: are you really ready to switch off?
☐ Does your stand-in know what not to do while you are away? A handover is usually written as a list of things to do. What is rarely included is which decisions are better left until you are back — and that is the part that saves the most cleanup later.
☐ Does any important task depend on a single person? If the answer is yes, and that person is you, your holiday is not the real risk — it is a structural problem, and one worth spotting well before summer.
☐ Write your out-of-office reply with care. Read it back and ask: does it point things to the right person, make clear who handles what, and say which channel to use?
☐ Have you set a clear limit for when people can contact you? “Emergencies only” means something different to everyone. One concrete example of what is worth a phone call saves both you and the caller a lot of guessing.
☐ Is your calendar clear for the day you return? A first day full of meetings undoes a holiday very quickly. Leave yourself room to ease back in.
