 We all work really hard and we all deserve a little rest and relaxation sometimes. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step toward becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. I can tell you from experience that sometimes people who are really driven to succeed have a hard time relaxing. So today I've got three tips for you that will help you disengage from work and take time to relax. And stay tuned to the end because I'm going to give you a link to download our free leadership development plan workbook and that'll help you set goals for your career for the next two, five and ten years and build a plan to achieve them. I'm just starting my spring break week from my MBA program and I'm looking forward to it because I've got a few fun things planned for myself and a few things I want to accomplish for my business with my downtime from school. Now I'm one of those people who has a really hard time letting go and relaxing and I tend to get focused and gravitate looking back at work and school and those other things but I'm really supposed to be taking time to relax and rest and recharge. So these four tips I'm going to give you today can help you if you're that same kind of person if you have a hard time letting go from work whether it's because people at work won't let you let go from work or because you just stay focused and gravitate on work like I sometimes do these four tips will help you disengage from work, disengage from your office and stay focused on resting and relaxing during your downtime so you can come back to your workplace with charge and that's what I plan on doing next week getting back to school rest and recharge while still getting a few things accomplished for myself and for my business. The first tip is to prep your team before you even walk out the door for your vacation. Make sure you understand who is going to be taking care of which responsibilities for you make sure you talk to them and get that positive handoff that you said I need you to handle this for me while I'm gone and they say I got it boss I'm going to handle it for you while you're gone and you look each other in the eye and you make that positive handoff. Make sure they know where they need to find that where they can find all the background information that might be important if they have to make a decision while you're gone. Make sure they know have all the access to the files or the cloud drive or shared servers or whatever it is that has the information they might need while you're gone. Also make sure they understand what decisions they're allowed to make while you're gone and what decisions you really want them to wait for you to come back for. Just like we talked about in our delegation video a couple weeks back it's important they understand the authority that they have as well as the responsibility you've given them while you're gone. Finally make sure they understand how to get a hold of you in an emergency and have a conversation about what a real emergency is. You don't want them contacting you emailing you phoning you over every little thing so make sure you kind of have a predefined definition of what's an emergency and that they know how to get a hold of you if a real emergency does pop up. The second tip is commit to a few fun activities you want to do on your time off whether you're taking a vacation somewhere or you're just kind of staying at home and I'm doing this one this week with myself this one's really important if you're like me and you find yourself gravitating back towards work and wondering where did my vacation go all I did was work on my vacation this one's really important. Pick a few things that are fun that you want to do commit to them put them on the calendar if that helps you pay for them in advance if that helps you. Just over the weekend as I was getting ready for spring break I talked to a couple friends we've got two or three activities planned a couple I'm doing by myself and a couple I'm doing with friends but you got to get yourself committed to those activities and bringing other people into the activity will help raise your level of commitment to the activity I know it helps me but now that I've got friends committed to do some of these activities this week I'm going to be committed to doing them so that I'm not letting my friends down and that we're all going to go have a good time together so make sure you commit yourself to a few fun activities on your vacation whether you're going somewhere or you're staying at home but make sure you don't just let your time float and you don't want to be wondering where your time went and why you didn't have any fun on your vacation when you were done it's not always possible but try to cut the cord while you're on vacation get rid of that electronic leash between your phone and your email so you can focus on having fun with your family and friends and doing those fun activities that you planned on doing if you use your phone for your personal life if your phone your computer for email for your personal life try to schedule some times of the day during your vacation that are electronics free that you're not carrying your phone or your laptop or whatever devices you like to use with you and if that's not possible if you want to take your phone with you you want to take pictures you want to post with social media because that's fun for you and you want to share your vacation there are a lot of apps you can find that will let you block off certain other apps during certain times of day or for certain periods of time and then you can stay focused you can you can I know it sounds crazy to talk about staying focused on vacation but again if you're like me and you gravitate back towards let me just check my email a little bit let me just check to see if I have any messages I'm just going to do it real quick and then two hours later you said I just spent two hours of my vacation answering work emails that's something I don't want to do anymore and I'm probably it's probably something you don't want to do anymore so try to cut that electronic cord cut that electronic leash get yourself away from it and if you can't leave your devices behind entirely try to use some other tools and systems to be electronics free for certain periods of the day on your vacation the last tip I've got for you today is it's okay to learn a little your vacation doesn't have to be completely frivolous you can put a little personal development in there some things you're meaning to do read that new leadership book you've been wanting to read or or that new personal development or goal setting or whatever it is you've been wanting to do and you just haven't had time to do for work but do it in moderation right work that in around your other fun planned activities that you scheduled if you're just going to be sitting on the beach or sitting by the pool it's okay read that book a little bit but make sure you put it aside and take some time for those other fun activities so there are your four tips for leaving work behind when you take some time off I know it's a little crazy to put so much thought into taking your vacation and taking time off and resting and recharge and relaxing but for a lot of us who are really driven people without without some kind of plan in place I know I would gravitate towards back back towards work I know I've done that in the past and I don't want to do that anymore so I'm using these four tips and I think if you use these four tips too the next time you take some time off whether it's a day or a week or whether you stay at home you go on vacation I think these four tips will help you stay engaged with your loved ones your family and friends and go out and have and do fun things with them instead of gravitating back towards work and it'll really help you leave the office behind if you found this helpful please like comment and share it with a friend or co-worker click on that link below in the description and that'll take you to our free leadership development workbook which will help you set goals for the next two five and ten years of your career and help you build a plan to achieve them if you have any business or leadership questions leave it in the comments below or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com evilgeniusleadership.com is also where you can find information about all of our coaching programs so if you're looking for a little more one-on-one training to help your sticking points and become one of the great leaders of tomorrow check that out and hit us up for a free consultation we'll be happy to do that with you thanks for watching today i really appreciate it and remember the future is out there lead the way