How to Take a Vacation as an Accountant
Vacations are a critical part of maintaining a sustainable lifestyle and career progression in the accounting world. Accountants first learn about the importance of vacations in their auditing and fraud classes where they are told that an indicator of fraud is an employee that never takes a vacation so that they have control over their area to better perpetrate a fraud. For the non-fraudsters out there, taking a vacation is important to relax and recharge from work because the modern working environment for accountants can easily lead to burnout. I’ve taken a number of vacations over the years, and I’ve learned that not all vacations are created equal to one another. Some are short trips for the weekend while others are planned prolonged escapes from everything. While having a variety of different vacations is important, today I’m going to talk about how to take a weeklong (or longer) vacation as an accountant to get away from work for a while without worrying about the return.
Plan a Trip Ahead of Time
While most accountants cannot take trips during the defined busier times of the year such as busy seasons for public accountants and important month, quarter, and year-end closes for industry accountants, it’s important to have a trip planned ahead of time with a date and destination in mind. Having a real trip planned is a great way to have something to look forward to and can even motivate you to get your work done in anticipation of the upcoming trip. Go ahead and book a plane ticket or a cruise excursion because just having a week to do nothing may not be good enough!
Plan Your Workload
It’s important to manage the work you may be responsible for before your vacation, so you don’t need to worry about it while you are out of the office. This means that you may need to coordinate with coworkers or clients to ensure certain work gets done before you leave, or detailed instructions are created to support them in your absence. I have seen many people get called on their vacation to handle something that was “urgent” because of suboptimal preparation, but it shouldn’t be that way.
Turn Off All Notifications While on Vacation
Turning off notifications is one of the best ways to separate yourself from work. Smartphones are integral to our daily lives and most people cannot separate themselves from work to enjoy a vacation without turning off notifications from their work emails to their personal devices. Depending on your role and the type of vacation you are taking, you may need to check in periodically, but do not be a slave to the push notifications on your phone! It’s important to let your brain disconnect and recharge from work and keeping work out of your thoughts (and off your phone screen) for as long as possible is critical to a healthy vacation.
While these steps may seem daunting at first and some of you may feel like this is overkill for a vacation, you will eventually realize how much you need a vacation where you can truly disconnect from working and worrying about work. Before I took my most recent vacation, I was one of those people that thought that being away from my daily work responsibilities was enough. But I realized that truly disconnecting and letting coworkers and clients work without me made for a better vacation experience, and a better working experience upon my return. So, if you haven’t tried planning a vacation using these steps, I encourage you to do so!