You’ve got a great trip planned for next month…a bike trip to France…or maybe just a week camping in the woods. Does your vacation checklist look like this:

• passport
• bike pedals
• bike computer
• traveler’s checks
• maps, compass, equipment
• clothes and supplies

Or does it look like this:

• laptop
• satellite phone
• laminated password cheat-sheet
• internet access/cell phone adapter for laptop

Or, put another way…do you vacation shop at REI or Radio Shack? Now it’s one thing if you love your work and the idea of remaining connected while enjoying travel in remote places appeals to you. But if you “have” to remain connected because your company can’t survive without you…that is either a problem of perception (no person is irreplaceable) or planning (why can’t someone cover for you?).

I remember one vacation where my IT manager quit while I was away…I ended up talking people through rebooting servers and editing systems configuration files over the phone. I call that process the “10-baud” connection:

So type ‘vi httpd.conf.’ OK, what directory are you in? Type ‘pwd.’ Yes, then hit ‘enter.’…call me back when you get to the colo…

That’s no way to live. There is no excuse, unless you work in a life-and-death industry, to be that tethered to work. When people start talking about getting you a satellite phone…you need to nip that conversation in the bud with some advance planning.

• Document your procedures. A wiki can be helpful for this as you write things down while you do them and create a ‘cookbook’ for later. Use this approach in general–not just to prepare some massive document before you leave.
• Rotate coverage of all key systems and develop a practice of delegation. When other people are “primary” on the pager, do they have the authority and experience to truly cover for you? How can you develop that?

Tomorrow, I’ll develop some more specific ideas on how you can leverage your monitoring tools–in advance–to prepare for situations when you can’t personally be there to handle the unexpected crisis that is sure to develop as you board that 6-hour flight out of the country.