Heading out of the office? 3 Tips for a great auto-reply.

It’s that time of year when we are focusing more on the time we are away from work than the time we are working. We deserve to shift our attention to friends, family, vacation! These are, after all, the things that make life enjoyable and the whole reason we agree to trade our time for money.

But in shifting our attention to holidays and pleasure, we need to make sure we don’t completely abandon our responsibilities.

We can only be productive if we rest. And we can only rest if we set up our responsibilities in ways that can allow us to rest.

Which is why we have out-of-office messages.

Turning on your out-of-office autoreply helps you enjoy your time away without ignoring the work that still needs to get done.

Here are the three things you need to do to ensure your out-of-office message is useful to you by protecting your time away from interruptions and guilt and is useful to others by providing the guidance they need when you are not available.

1. Include when others can expect a response from you.

This is not the same thing as when you will be back. Don’t tell people through your out-of-office message when you get back from vacation. How ever long you’ve been out, whether it was one day or two…