It’s very important for your corporate wellness that you take some sort of break, but there are ways of making sure that you stay in touch with the office in some form while you are also managing to get some rest and relaxation at the same time.
Having a smartphone of some type could be the key to maintaining a work/life balance whilst also getting a holiday. It’s a small enough device to carry around in your pocket and means that you are contactable if you are needed at any point on a work-related matter. On smartphones, you can also keep an eye on e-mails so that you are aware of what is going on back at the office no matter where you are, and can deal with anything important that arises.
You need to be careful, though, to make sure that this doesn’t impinge on the rest of your life altogether, taking away from your wellbeing and time spent with your family. One way of achieving this is to be disciplined with your smartphone use: turn the e-mail alert function off, for example, and only check on your e-mails once per hour so that you know what is happening, but are not constantly distracted from whatever you are doing outside of the office.
Often, a quick reply can be all that is needed to deal with a situation, or to advise others of how to deal with it in your absence. Another tip is to disable the feature that tells people an e-mail was sent from your phone – that way you’ll look like you are hard at work at your desk, even if in reality you are on the beach somewhere!