Like many of you I've been on my summer holidays. Before I went away, I diligently agreed holiday cover arrangements then set voicemail and email messages to 'out of office' mode. However, on both voice and email messaged I left an option to send me a text for anything really urgent as it was the thing most likely to work on my way through rural France and I could ignore email for most of the time.
Then I checked with my family. My wife (MD of her own company) prefers email as the emergency contact. She was checking it on her iPhone every few hours while I was driving, though she was keeping data roaming off for most of the time to keep costs down (she pays her own bill). My teenage daughter's strategy was to only communicate through Facebook, and only when she could get wifi on her iPhone (also pays her own bill).
I wonder what others do? Do you prefer to check email, voicemail, or have people call you? And what does your family do?
Peter
Credit: © nyul - Fotolia.com
Hi Peter, actually I prefer to go on a digital holiday too when it's vacation time. So traditional phone is the only 'office' option for me. Digital is great, allowing us to be connected all the time anywhere, but sometimes you need to unplug and get back to just being. And then be fully refreshed for digital magic when you're back on the grid. ;-)
I like to check my email regularly, just so that I don't have the nagging feeling that I've dropped the ball. The out of office just means "don't expect me to do write anything over the next two weeks", it doesn't mean I'm not available to discuss new projects or troubleshoot something before an impending deadline. I hardly ever travel without a laptop with Dropbox to sync all my files (good when roaming, keeps the remote access costs down). Maybe it's just part of the entrepreneurial culture....there is no such thing as downtime.