Did you miss me? I was gone for a whole month exploring Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. (There are bonus pictures at the end of the post as a prize for reading!) It was an amazing trip and easily twice as long as any trip I’ve ever taken since I began MRW Web Design in 2009. I return with new stories and excitement to get keep helping people build their websites.

You know what else happened while I was gone? Not much!

When my partner and I decided to plan this trip, the idea of taking so much time off was really intimidating. I feared what would happen to my business and clients when I left, but I took faith in something that turned out to be very true: A long time ago, a college friend pointed out that a lot of scary big decisions and commitments have plenty of planning time built in.

The controlling, detail-oriented, planner in me wanted to know how I was going to handle all that time away—with no computer and spotty wifi ((In parts of Southeast Asia, wifi is pronounced “wiffy!”)) no less! However, that wasn’t possible, I just had to go for it. You can’t plan to avoid unspecified, vague fears about things you don’t know will happen yet!

We bought our tickets about six months out and that was plenty of time to let clients know, shift my work priorities, and mentally prepare to be away.

• Clients with long projects that began working with me as early as November or December of last year quickly knew that I’d be gone a long time in the summer (even before I had exact dates).
• I had plenty of time to arrange someone to cover for any emergencies. (Thanks, Mike Brogan Consulting!)
• Starting in late April, I mostly stopped accepting new work until August and put all my energy into wrapping up loose ends.

And it worked great! I launched a new site for WSCADV and a new home page for NWHRN in the week before I left, projects that had been in the works for months.

The plane ticket example is a pretty easy one for a way to commit yourself to something in advance, but a strong shared commitment can work. If you’re dragging your feet on something big that takes a while, just get started. You can figure out most of the details as you go! ((This applied to our trip itself to. I had never done any just-in-time travel planning before, but it worked out just fine. We had a rough itinerary and the first week booked, but after that we just planned our travel and lodging a couple of days in advance. That got us through three countries and nine cities in 30 days.))

As promised, here are some highlights from the trip!

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