Being self employed is great. You are in charge of things like the hours that you work and even the place you decide to work in each day!
One of the major downsides however can be if you are unwell and unable to work then there goes your income. On top of that another big income drain can be if you decide to go away on holiday. There are various things you can do though in order to keep the money ticking over while you are sunning it on your holidays and make sure you don’t come back to huge inbox of angry emails from people!
Use Out of Office
In my main 9-5 job if I am ever on annual leave putting on my out of office at work is something I do more out of habit than anything else. The same however can’t be said for my self employed work. It’s not until recently that I started to make use of Google Mail’s Out Of Office feature. I don’t know why I held off on using it for so long, I think it may have been because when you are self employed you want to create this sense of ‘always being available’.
If people contact you while you are in another country there is probably very little you can do about the work they are emailing you about anyway so letting them know via an auto reply that you are away from date x until date y and the reason for the lack of your response will make them be far more understanding.
Prep work before you go
The last thing you want to come home from your holiday to is a blog post you suddenly need to write to keep up with your posting schedule. I typically work around 3 or 4 weeks ahead on The Money Shed Blog and the reason for that is that the unexpected always seems to happen and I want to have a bit of ‘buffer’ space time wise if I am unable to actually write a blog post for whatever reason. Going on holiday and knowing the 2 blog posts that are due to go up after your return are already written and in the bag is a way to put your mind at ease while you are away.
It’s OK to stop posts while you are away so long as your readers know to expect it
Those that read this blog regularly will know I tend to take at lease one big 2 week holiday a year. On top of that there is generally a ‘blog closedown‘ around Christmas / New Year time. Scheduling posts for when I am away has never been something I have wanted to do. First of all it would just be my luck that a post goes up while I am 5000 miles away with images that don’t work or an affiliate link different to the one it should be linking to. Secondly I think it’s OK to give your readers a break as well.
Whenever I have been about to go away and I have known new posts won’t be going up I’ve always put up a quick blog post to explain that I am away on holiday and I simply explain when new blog posts will be appearing. I think your readers will understand that you are not a machine and need time away from your blog and are more than willing to give you that space!
So next time you are thinking about going away and catching some rays if you follow the steps above you will be able to switch off a lot easier and enjoy your time away knowing you aren’t coming back to any blog related stresses.
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