From the Desk of Janet Barclay

In the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, "vacation" is defined as "a period of several days or weeks spent away from work or school etc., used esp. for recreation and travel; a holiday."

With today’s technology, a growing number of executives and small business owners rarely, if ever, take a vacation in the traditional sense, where they go away somewhere (or stay at home) and just relax, or maybe do some projects around the house. Instead, they bring along their laptops and/or PDAs so they can stay on top of their email, even if it’s only for half an hour a day. I know one small business owner who took a vacation week earlier this summer. She didn’t go away; in fact, she didn’t even stop working. Instead, she made herself unavailable to clients, and used the time to focus on some writing projects for her own business.

Last year, I took my first vacation in many years, and for the most part, it was work-free. I love my work, but it was great to be able to just relax and enjoy my surroundings and the company of my family. I was able to do that by notifying my regular clients well in advance that I would not be available during that time, putting an "out of office" message on my email and voicemail, and letting everyone know they could contact my subcontractor if they needed anything while I was away. I also let my subcontractor know how I could be reached if there were any emergencies, so I didn’t have to worry about anything. And you know what? The world didn’t fall apart because I wasn’t there to manage things! And it’s not because business was slow – in fact the months before and after that week were some of the busiest I’ve ever had.

What are your vacation plans? Will you travel or stay at home? Will you check messages, work on your business, or go for complete R&R?

Are you worried about losing business to your competition if you don’t check your email every day? Are you afraid of coming home to hundreds of emails?

Organized Assistant can help you relax and truly enjoy your vacation, by monitoring your email while you are away. Depending on your requirements, we will:

• Delete obvious spam
• Respond to routine inquiries
• Set up appointments for when you return
• Delete newsletters, event invitations, etc.

 Please contact me if you’d like more information about this or any of our services.

Someone sent me this very inspiring poem:

Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask "How are you?"
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say "Hi"?
You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Unfortunately, along with the poem came a claim that it was written by a young girl with a terminal illness and that the American Cancer Society will donate 3 cents for every person it is forwarded to. This is of course false, as are most (if not all) of such claims (which I’ve blogged about before), but the poem itself was too good not to share.

If you receive this type of message and feel compelled to share it with your friends, please just forward the poem or story or post it on your blog, and delete all the nonsense. As stated on the website BreakTheChain.org:

"… the first step to reducing the amount of junk out there is to stop sending it yourself."

Did you know that this is National Email Week? Did you even know such a thing existed? Well, apparently it does, and I can’t think of a better time to review Seth Godin’s Email Checklist. It begins like this: