How do you prepare to UNPLUG for vacation? No wireless devices!

5 Tips That Will Allow YOU to UNPLUG on your VACATION!

1) Leave your handheld device AT HOME!

2) Notify everyone in advance of your time away versus relying on automatic out of office replies. This way, you can close out some issues, direct them to appropriate persons that may be able to assist them and you'll sleep better at night knowing you will not have an unnecessarily amount of emails and follow ups upon your return.

3) Pick ONE confidante on your team and share your personal email with this person. This is ONLY to be used for CRITICAL issues. This person should be the gatekeeper for all things and will decide if it's worth a communique to you.

4) Take the first day or two of vacation to do absolutely NOTHING! This includes catching up on sleep, lounging around, vegging out, sun bathing, etc. This way, after day 2, you'll be rejuvenated and refreshed and will want to tackle the remainder of your vacation like a Vacation Champ.

5) If number 1 above, is not possible,....create boundaries, i.e. restricted times during the day you will check email or respond to voicemail, etc.

Enjoy,

These Ladies Have "IT"

Amy, Chanda, Faye and Lori

Why we met...

Our companies invested in each of us through our participation in a program through an organization called Women UNLIMITED.  The program was called LEAD (Leadership Education and Development).  As part of the program we were paired up with three other women as part of a "peer mentoring." In late December 2011, Chanda/Faye/Lori/Amy were assigned to work with each other. I will never forget that first time we sat together as a peer team.  In my head I was trying to figure out why I was paired with these three specific women, what was I to gain from them and what was I to give.  The idea of peer mentoring was to develop each other based upon our individual development plans (IDP's) we had crafted.  It became very apparent the first day that we had two very organized/detail focused individuals in Faye and Lori and that we had two big picture thinkers in Amy and Chanda.  As we read through our IDP's we quickly realized we could help each other out.  Our focus became the following---
Faye- she needed to get her personal life back, work had taken over
Chanda- she needed to get focused and get into the details a bit more to get to know her staff
Lori- she needed to take a big picture view and stop doing everything as a person of ONE
Amy- she needed to develop a network in her "new" organization to be positioned for long term success.

The issues were different by person but yet something of which we each could help each other out.  And so it began we started to make progress on becoming the leaders who had "IT".