I have to go out of town for a couple days next week.  If I were someone’s employee, I could have just cleared it with my boss, slapped an away message up in my email, and that would be that. Instead, being self-employed, going out of town took a solid week of planning head.

As always, my primary duty was to my clients and my regular work. Starting this week, I had to repartition my schedule to make up for the three days next week that I will be unable to work. You guessed it – that meant putting in even longer days this week to make up for the lack.

I also did something that is a terrible idea in other circumstances. I did not send out my usual 3-5 daily job queries. Now constant marketing is the hallmark of a busy freelancer, so I consider my decision to give it a rest for a few days before my vacation a matter of preserving my reputation.  I’ve found that new clients are never so hot and heavy to talk to you, send you repeated emails, give you work and basically just communicate the bejeezus out of you as the first few days you are working together.  If I were to get a new client early next week, I would be losing out on that opportunity to gain momentum with them by being out of town.

As for my other clients, I let the ones that communicate with me a on a regular basis know about my trip with a little friendly reminder email. After that, I put another friendly reminder in my email signature line. That way, it’s in their minds but I don’t continually hit them over the head with the fact that yes, I don’t actually work 365 days per year.

Right now I’m on day four of my planning week, and so far so good. How about you guys? Do you do anything special to plan for an out of town trip?