Vacations are always good as it helps you to get of the regular stress and you also get to spend quality time with your family. However that does not allow you to completely forget your professional responsibilities, you have to  leave some appropriate information behind at your office, or on your computer so that people know you are not available.

Here I am going to discuss some of the best practices and suggestions for your PC to make sure that your work goes on smoothly, even in your absence.

Suggestion 1.

Decline the meetings to come. Decline any upcoming meetings that are scheduled while you are gone. Your Co-workers will not expect you to be at meetings.

Suggestion 2.

You must update the status of your voice mail. Record and update a voice message which provides accurate information about your vacations and you returning back to office You should also provide the contact information immediate assistance in your voice mail greeting.

Suggestion 3.

Make sure that your mailbox does not exceed the size limits as a full mailbox will prevent you from sending or receiving the e-mail while you are on move.

Suggestion 4.

Block the off time in your calendar. Make the Outlook calendar settings to show your co-workers that you are away. That way, they will see that you are not available and won’t schedule any meetings with you. To block the off time, you can create an appointment showing that you are out of office. To create the appointments do the following steps:

1. Go to File menu, point to New and then click Appointment.

2. In Start time, select the date you are leaving. In End time, select the date you are returning.

3. If you are leaving for just one day then click All day event box.

4. Under Show time as, select Out of Office.

5. Click Save and then Close.

Suggestion 5.

Check in your work files. If you are going on vacation with a file checked out, your team members cannot work on that file. So, you have to make sure to check in all your files.

Suggestion 6.

Secure your laptop. Laptops are the common targets of theft. If you are not taking your laptop with you, take it home.

Suggestion 7.

MS Outlook provides you a wonderful feature for such occasion, out of Office assistance. You can configure the Out of Office assistance feature to let people know that you are away from office. This feature sends an automated reply on all the email received on you inbox during this period. You can customize the automated reply with required information and can also setup the rules to file messages. To use this option, go to Tools Menu in your Outlook application, and select Out of Office assistance feature. It will give you an option to type in your message for auto reply so provide the information in the message and you are good to go.