I take time off a few times a year. A solo work trip, a family vacation, a few days around a holiday.

And every single time, I'd rebuild the same out of office list from memory in the 48 hours before I left. Half-remembered, always in a rush 😅

Then one trip I came home and my client reminder automation in Airtable was still switched off.

I couldn't figure out why people didn't join, because the calls were on as normal. Then I realized the reminder wasn't.

Nobody was upset about it. But it bugged me, because it wasn't a hard thing to remember. It just fell through the cracks.

That's when it clicked that I'd been solving the wrong half of the problem.

The hard part of taking time off isn't the leaving. It's the coming back.

Turning things off is easy. You're standing right there, about to go on an adventure. Turning things back on is what falls through the cracks, because by then you're home, buried in to-dos, and the thing you paused is invisible.

💡 So this week's shortcut is the exact one I built to fix it: a saved out of office process that runs my entire checklist from my travel dates, and books the reminder to turn everything back on before I've even packed.

I give it my dates and it walks the whole checklist with me, in order. Anything that can't be flipped automatically becomes a one-click link, and it waits for me to confirm instead of pretending it did it.

Before ❌ Rebuilding the same list from memory before every single trip ❌ Something stays switched off and a client notices before you do ❌ Your emails go quiet while you're gone, so you restart from zero

After ✅ One saved process that runs your whole checklist from your dates ✅ The turn-it-back-on reminder is booked before you even leave ✅ Emails keep going out, so you come home to a warm list

Your Shortcut 👇 Here's your five-minute audit: if you left for a week starting tomorrow, what would still be running that shouldn't be? And what would you forget to turn back on? Write down everything that happens in a normal week. Calls, reminder automations, scheduled marketing emails & social posts. For each one, note what pauses before you go and what has to be flipped back on when you return. Then create a checklist of what needs to be done for each one so it doesn't fall through the cracks, and have AI help you automate the pieces that don't need you. Reminder tasks, scheduling emails, etc.

You've already been inside The Shortcut so you know how it works 😉

This is just the shortcut that dropped this week so if you're ready to take real time off knowing everything pauses and restarts without you having to remember any of it, I'd love to have you come back.

Come back to The Shortcut →

Happy automating,
Steph