TOO BUSY FOR HOLIDAYS

The founder of Small Business Women Australia, Amanda is a key mentor and career adviser “I’M TTOO busy at work to take holidays” holid ... I’m hearing this everywhere. eve

Post Covid, everyone from bosses bo to employees feels like they t are playing catch-up and unable u to take time off.

We’re all guilty of it but the result r will be widespread burnout bu or people quitting their jobs. So what’s the answer?

A better balance. The ideal worker is someone who can manage their workload and take holidays.

FINDING BALANCE

We all have a lot of filler activities that take up time during our work day but are not core to what we do.

Sitting in endless meetings, writing reports no one reads – we have to stop wasting time doing things with no return on investment.

Your reputation as an employee will be based on performance, not on the number of hours or weeks you spend in the office.

All bosses want healthy, engaged workers.

That means having balance in your life and taking much-needed

breaks to avoid exhaustion and lower productivity.

PRIORITISE

Any boss will tell you that accumulated leave is a risk to the business, so they want you to book it – and take it.

If you have a mountain of work to get through before an upcoming holiday, instead of cancelling it (or not booking it in the first place) speak to your boss about how you can prioritise or delegate tasks.

Ideally you should be assessing what needs to be done today and

what can be postponed until tomorrow, next week, next month, next year – or what can be dropped altogether.

This self-assessment or team assessment is needed because some people don’t know how to project manage or time manage, so everything is a priority.

That’s when a boss can step in, look at the list and give clear instructions on what can be done before a holiday and then postholiday. Or they can reassign tasks to enable the worker to take leave without feeling guilty about it.