The Out Of Office PlaybookLeave clean. Come back clear.
Every time you leave and come back to chaos, it costs you a week just getting back to baseline — and it proves the business still runs on you. This turns a holiday into a test you can pass. Set the team up before you go, give them a system to capture what happens while you're gone, then use what broke as the build list for next time.
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This fills as you complete Phase 1. Don't board the plane under 80%.
One document, three phases, two people. You fill in Phase 1. Your second-in-command owns Phase 2 while you're gone. You both sit down for Phase 3 on the day you're back.
Who fills it in
The owner writes Phase 1. The deputy runs Phase 2. Both do Phase 3 together.
How long it takes
90 minutes to set up. 2 minutes a day while away. 90 minutes on the day you're back.
What you get out
A written record instead of a mental reconstruction — and a list of the exact systems to build next.
Work backwards from your departure date. The mistake almost everyone makes is starting this the night before — which leaves no time to fix what the audit exposes.
14 days out — fill in the Setup block and run the Absence TestYou need the runway. The Absence Test tells you what's still bolted to you, and some of those need two weeks to hand over properly.
7 days out — assign decision rights, cover map and standby rosterSay it out loud to each person named. Written is not the same as agreed.
2 days out — send the team brief, set the auto-reply, hand over the logBoth drafts generate themselves further down this page. Copy, paste, send.
Day 1 back — 90 minutes on Phase 3 before you take a single callRead, sort, debrief, decide what gets built. Then open your inbox.
The rule
The business should never depend on you physically being there. Your job before you go is to set the parameters so clearly that there are no questions. Your job when you're back is to close the loop — not firefight from scratch. Every interruption while you're away is a missing system, not a bad team.
01 Setup5 minutes · Do this first
Name the players and the dates
Everything you type here drops into the rest of the document automatically — the team brief, the auto-reply and the summary all write themselves from these fields.
One name. Not a committee. If you can't name one, that's your first finding.
How many times you're willing to be contacted for the whole trip. Pick a number now — you'll score against it.
02 Phase oneStart 14 days out
Before you leave
The goal isn't a tidy handover. It's that anyone on your team can answer "what do I do if…?" without calling you — because the decision was already made, in writing, before you left.
Who
Owner, with the deputy in the room for steps 2–4.
When
Steps 1–4 at 14 days out. Steps 5–7 in the final week.
Time
About 90 minutes total, split across two sittings.
1The Absence Test
Before you fix anything, find out what's actually bolted to you. List every task, decision or relationship that would stall if you vanished tomorrow. Be brutal — this list is the whole point of the exercise.
Ten minutes, no editing. Then for each line: name who could own it and what's stopping them — usually access, training, or permission to decide. Missing permission is the easiest one to fix and the most common.
What stalls without me
Who could own it
What's stopping them
Fix before I go?
2Decision rights
This is the single highest-leverage page in the playbook. Most calls to an absent owner aren't emergencies — they're people seeking permission. Grant the permission in advance and the calls stop.
Put a real number in every limit. "Use your judgement" is not a decision right — "spend up to $2,000 without asking" is. Anything you leave blank, they will call you about.
Decision
Who owns it while I'm away
Limit / condition
Escalate to
3The cover map
Every function of the business gets a name against it. Where you can't name someone, you've found a hole — cover it, or accept it will land on you mid-trip.
Tell each person directly, and tell the rest of the team who to go to. The team should never have to guess who owns a question.
Function
Who covers it
What good looks like while I'm away
Hole? What's missing
4The escalation ladder
Cap it at three. If the list is longer than three, you haven't delegated — you've just written a longer phone tree. Be specific enough that the team can tell the difference at 9pm on a Saturday.
The ladder — in order. Nobody skips a rung.
5Standby roster
Named person, named period, named type of call. Ambiguity here is what generates the 11pm call to you.
Period
On standby
Calls they cover
If they can't handle it
6Pre-flight checklist
Tick nothing you haven't actually done. A half-done handover is worse than none — the team assumes it's covered and nobody checks.
Walk every active job or account with the person covering itIn person or on site. Not a document. They should be able to tell you the scope, the sequence and the risk on each one — without you prompting.Done when — they brief you, not the other way round.
Say the decision rights out loud to each person namedWritten permission that hasn't been spoken doesn't get used. People default to asking. Tell them plainly: "You decide this. Don't call me."Done when — each person can repeat their limit back to you.
Clear or hand over anything time-bound in your windowQuotes, renewals, approvals, invoices, tax dates, contract deadlines. Either finish it before you go, or name who's finishing it and when.Done when — nothing in the calendar for those dates has your name on it.
Check access — logins, keys, cards, approvals, signaturesThe most common reason a delegated task bounces back is that the person physically couldn't do it. Test it before you leave, don't assume.Done when — they've logged in and done one real transaction, with you watching.
Brief the deputy on the three things most likely to breakYou already know what they are. Walk through what they do in each case — before it happens, not during.Done when — they've told you their plan for each one.
Send the team briefGenerates below. Who to go to for what, what not to interrupt you for, how to log things.Done when — it's sent and someone has replied.
Set an auto-reply with real information in itWho to contact, what counts as urgent, when you're back. "I'm away, limited email access" tells a client nothing and guarantees they chase you.Done when — a stranger emailing you knows exactly what to do next.
Hand the incident log to the deputy and confirm they'll fill it inShare it as a live doc they can edit — not a PDF. Agree when they'll update it: end of each day, two minutes.Done when — they've made the first entry with you there.
Tell your key clients you'll be away and who's looking after themThe top handful, personally, before you go. Being told is reassuring; finding out is not.Done when — each one knows the name of their contact.
Decide your own rules and say them out loudHow often you'll check in, from where, and what you will not do. If you don't decide this, you'll check your phone at breakfast every day and call it a holiday.Done when — the people you're travelling with know the rule too.
7The messages — written for you
Fill in Setup and the fields above, then hit generate. Edit the tone to sound like you, and send.
These pull your names, dates and rules straight from what you've already typed.
Copied
Team brief
Press “Write the team brief” and it appears here.
Copied
Email auto-reply
Press "Write the auto-reply" and it appears here.
03 Phase twoEvery day you're away · 2 minutes
While you're away
They capture it. You don't carry it. The log is the deliverable of this phase — and it becomes your build list the moment you're back.
Who
The deputy owns the log. Anyone can add to it.
When
End of each day. Two minutes. Not a weekly summary written from memory.
Owner's job
Almost nothing. One check-in window, emergencies only.
The rule for the team
"Don't decide whether it's worth logging — just log it." What happened, what you did, whether it's still open. The last column is the important one: it tells the owner which decisions should never have needed a human at all.
Recreate this in a shared doc if the team can't all edit this file. Keep the "needed the owner?" column — it's the one that turns a log into a system.
Date
What happened
What we did
Still open?
Needed the owner?
So you can pick it up cleanly instead of discovering it. Client, job, rough value, next step, who's on it.
Every time the owner is contacted — call, text, email, "quick question" — click plus. This is the number that proves whether the business runs without you.
0Interruptions this trip · Target: —
Your job while away
Bare minimum. One check-in window at a set time, not a phone in your hand all day. If it can wait until you're back — it waits. Every time you step in, you teach the team to wait for you.
04 Phase threeDay one back · 90 minutes
When you get back
Don't walk in and grab the first thing in front of you. Read, sort, debrief, decide what gets built. In that order.
Who
Steps 1–2 alone. Step 3 with the deputy. Step 4 with whoever's building.
When
First 90 minutes of day one — before any calls, before the inbox.
The output
A ranked list of what you're doing, and a list of systems to build before the next trip.
1Read before you react
Block 60 minutes. Read the whole log start to finish before you speak to anyone. Take notes as you go — you're looking for patterns, not just items.
2Sort it
Start top-left. Delegate the whole bottom-left column today, not "when I get a chance". Don't touch the bottom-right this week.
Urgent + important — today
Important, not urgent — schedule this week
Urgent, not important — delegate today
Neither — park or delete
3The debrief
Ask them in order. Take notes. Resist defending anything — you're collecting evidence about the business, not being marked.
4Acknowledge who stepped up
Within 48 hours. Specific, in person, and where it counts — in front of the team. People repeat what gets noticed.
5Turn what broke into what gets built
Every "Yes — had to ask" and every "Yes — no rule existed" in the log is a missing system. This table is where the trip pays for itself.
One line per gap. Name an owner and a date, or it won't happen — and you'll write the same list after the next trip.
The gap
What gets built (SOP, rule, access, training)
Who builds it
Done by
6Score the trip
Honest numbers only. These are the ones you'll compare against next time.
Not scored yet
Fill in the numbers above and press "Score this trip".
Answer it in one sentence. It's the whole reason you did this.
05 Over timeOne line per absence
The trip log
One trip proves nothing. A trend proves everything. Each absence should take fewer interruptions and fewer hours than the last — and if it doesn't, you didn't build what the last debrief told you to.
Dates
Days away
Interruptions
Hours worked
Biggest gap it exposed
What good looks like
Trip one: a dozen interruptions and a long build list. Trip three: one or two, and a business that didn't notice you were gone. The build list between trips is what moves the number — not willpower, and not a better attitude from the team.