I think it would be good if people listened to the Sabbatical Episode of Focused (101) for the definition of Sabbatical that David is using. (One week off after 6 weeks of work.)
I don’t think there’s much insight to gain by discussing what qualifies or does not qualify as a sabbatical.
That said, here are my tips, as someone who works with Americans but tries to have European-style vacations sprinkled through the year:
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Communicate early and often. – While your hunch is that you don’t even want your clients to notice when you’re out, you cannot afford that. It is just a background radiation of being concerned that a client could notice or brings an important project during that week. It’s better to have them know and clearly communicate.
In your case I would start with a general email four weeks before the sabbatical that contains
- sabbatical dates – I would always list the three next ones, that give clients a way to put them in their calendars and plan ahead. I might even attach a calendar ICS file with the pre-planned sabbatical dates.
- your motivation – Why are you doing it, what are the benefits for the clients?
- what happens in emergencies – see below
- how work can be structured between your weeks off – When is happening what in each circle, how can clients plan ahead?
I would follow up 2 weeks and 1 week before the sabbatical and also create an auto-responder.
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Offer meetings before you leave for the sabbatical. – Schedule or offer to schedule meetings with all clients in the penultimate week before the sabbatical. That allows you to catch time sensitive issues and address them in the week before your leave. For everything non-time sensitive, schedule it to after your absence and communicate that to your clients. This will be reassuring.
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Create an emergency email address. – This sounds antithetical, but hear me out. Create an emergency@example.com email address that you communicate to your clients. Say you’re only reachable through this email in case of life/business threatening emergencies during that week. During the week, set an autoresponder on your regular email that says the same. That way people who are afraid to have a real emergency have a way to reach you, which is reassuring. And changing the email address or the need to send the email again to another address usually means that people don’t consider things to be emergencies in the end.
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Schedule time for catch-up. – When I return from a three week vacation, I usually schedule the next week for catch up. When you’re away for a week, maybe schedule Monday & Tuesday. Also communicate that. That way people who come up with “Emergencies” will probably say on Wednesdays “It’s ok if it is dealt with on Monday.”
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Don’t overthink it. – If an emergency comes in, and it really is one (it might need some push back and communication to get a common understanding between you and clients of what is an “emergency”), take the time, concentrate on making it go away, so you can return to your sabbatical. Issues happen and cutting a couple of hours out of your day is not too bad when you then can go back to sabbaticaling with a clear mind.
I hope that helps, @MacSparky, you deserve some sabbaticals 