What Official Holiday’s Should Virtual Assistants Take Off?

Monday was President’s Day here in the states, which is a holiday where a lot of people I know had the day off {and get paid for it, to boot!}

But for us Virtual Assistants, I imagine most of us worked Monday because we don’t get paid time off and so we have to be selective in what holiday’s we take off.

Which begs the question…

What official holiday’s should you take off in your Virtual Assistant business?

Honestly, I hadn’t really given this much thought until the last few months when I keep finding myself a little jealous of my friends who work corporate jobs and get random holidays off {I’m looking at you, my “I’m off for Columbus Day” peeps!} .

On one hand, I don’t want to take a holiday off just so that I can have the day off. I enjoy my work and I’d rather save my time off for days when I have things I really want to be doing with my time {such as going on a vacation, spending time with my family or boyfriend, etc}.

I’m also conscious of the fact that being away from my office a ton can potentially create stress for my clients – I don’t want them feeling like I’m not around or that they are always having to find someone else to cover for me or having to do the tasks that they hired me to do.

But on the other hand, I created my VA business so that I could CHOOSE when I want to work and when I don’t, and I don’t want my clients dictating when I can and can’t have off. {That’s actually illegal, too, btw.}

So for me, I usually take the big US holiday’s off:

• Mardi Gras

• Good Friday + Easter

• Memorial Day

• Fourth of July

• Labor Day

• My Birthday {…what, it’s not a holiday? 😉 }

• Thanksgiving and Black Friday

• Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after

• New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day

Other than that, there aren’t too many other “small” holiday’s that I take off.

Have you ever made a list of what days you want to officially take off in your VA business?

If not, I invite you to sit down and do that today and then let your clients know wayyyy in advance so they can prep and you can prepare for you to be away together!

Beyond the usual holiday’s I listed above, you might consider taking off for other things such as:

• your children or significant other’s birthdays

• your anniversary

• any religious holidays you observe

• days where you have doctor or dentist appointments that you scheduled in advance

If you’re a mom, you probably want to plan take more time off than those of us VAs who don’t have children. Because if your kids are in school, it would be awesome to plan your ‘official holiday’ dates in your business to coincide with the days your kids have off from school if you choose so that you can spend time with your kids without feeling stressed about work.

So for mom's, I’d advise that when you get your kids school schedule each fall, you let your clients know in advance that you’ll be taking certain days off, such as:

• Days you’ll accompany your kids on school field trips

• Days your kids are off for school holidays

• Fall break

• Christmas break

• Spring break

• Days your kids have planned-in-advance doctor or dentist appointments

TIP #1: To make it easy for your clients to know which holiday’s you’ll be out of your office without having to constantly remind them, you can create a Google Calendar with your out of office dates set as appointments on it, and share it with them. This is a good way to automate the reminders and to make sure your clients are always aware of your availability on certain holidays.

TIP #2: Be sure to set an “out of office” autoresponder on your email for days you are taking off for the holidays. This will be a good way to remind your clients who might email you on those days and will let them know when to anticipate your return.

I hope you’ll sit down this week and plan out your holiday’s off for the remainder of the year… And then create that shared calendar and notify your clients. You’ll be so glad you did and it’ll make planning your work load – and your client’s work load – so much easier when everyone is on the same page about availability.

As always, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below…

What holidays do you take off and why?

I’d really love to know in case I am overlooking some major holidays I should be taking off!

Xx

Kelly

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PSS: Should I be taking National Ice Cream Day off? It’s July 21st… 😊 Let me know in a comment below!