Prepare a Clear Handover Before Vacation
Added 2026-11-01
Make it possible for a colleague to run the week without you.
I am on vacation for a week next week. Prepare a handover checklist: 1) things that must be handled during the week, with triggers and how to handle them; 2) things that can wait until I am back, and the risk of waiting; 3) current status and next step for each open project; 4) who can decide what, and what must wait for me; 5) escalation order if something breaks; 6) one line telling colleagues when to interrupt me and when not to. Keep it to one page.
Site original
Chinese original
How to use
好的交接让同事不需要来问你。
Try tweaking it
- Ask for three columns: conclusion, owner, deadline — ready to paste into a table.
- Let it organise only your notes; do not add decisions that were never made.
What you should get
- Task list with owner, deadline and blocker
- Escalations that need a decision, listed separately
Common mistakes
- Feeding raw notes and letting it fill in decisions that were never made.
- Getting owners without deadlines, so no task can be created.
How to check the output
- Every item has an owner and a date — ready to become a task.
- It does not record decisions that were never made.
Where it works
- Good for: turning verbal discussion into owner, deadline and blocker.
- Watch out: let it organise only the notes you supply — never let it infer decisions that were not made.