One of the big problems with small professional practices like mine is when we return from our annual leave.
Everything revolves around the one person in a sole practitioner office, and the same would apply to professionals in different industries who operate as solo entrepreneurs.
The big problem when you come back is the amount of time you need to spend catching up on correspondence, files, and most of all emails.
This year, for the first time, I did not turn on my “out of office” email whilst I was away.
I trusted my staff, having discussed it with them, to deal with the emails they could deal with and be done with it.
And only the ones I needed to see could be put on the back burner for my return. Where necessary, the response would be that I am on annual leave and the email would be brought to my attention on my return.
Even this reply is better than the standard “out of office, on annual leave” response as it was bespoke to the circumstances.
And it has made a tremendous improvement to my return from annual leave. In fact, it has been unrecognisable, because a huge quantity of emails that I would normally have to wade through on my return have already been dealt with satisfactorily.
All I must deal with is a relatively small number that require my input.
I am in sole practitioner practice since 2011 and this one decision not to turn on my “out of office” auto response is one of the best I have made.