Get ready for time without your office manager.
Maybe your office manager is taking two weeks off. Maybe they are retiring or moving on for good. Either way the point is the same. A real break, or a proper goodbye, with no “one quick question” texts from the office. Start with the work that will come due while they are gone. Give every task a person and a place to find the answer.
Start with the calendar
List everything that comes due while your office manager is out. For a long absence, that is the weeks they are away. For a last day, look further ahead, to the jobs that only come up once a quarter or once a year. Customer replies, scheduling, supplier orders, receipts and whatever your accountant will be asking for. Check the recurring reminders as well as the appointments. For each task, decide if it has to happen, can wait, or needs the owner to decide.
Walk through a real task
Have the office manager show the backup one ordinary example. Write down where the request comes in, which file they open, what they decide and where they leave the result. Capture the awkward version too, like a request with half the details missing or an approval that never came.
Give the backup access before the last day in the office
Have the backup sign in with their own account and open the records they will need. A folder link is not proof that access works. Write down who can restore access if something breaks. Keep passwords out of the handover notes and agree how authorized access will be handled.
Try a quiet rehearsal.
Let the backup do one recurring task using only the instructions. The office manager watches and says nothing. Every question that comes up is an edit to the handover. It is not a mark against anybody.
If your office manager is leaving for good
Retirement or a new job uses the same sheets. One thing changes. The backup is not covering for a while. They are taking over, so write their name in as the owner. Before the last day, have them run every must-do task on their own, with the office manager close by to answer. Fix the instructions while the person who knows the answers is still in the building. Then the goodbye can be a proper one, not a phone that keeps ringing.
Print your coverage sheet
Copy this for each task. Fill it in together, then keep the finished sheets in one place everyone knows.
Use your browser’s Print command to print this guide or save a PDF. The worksheet starts on a fresh page.
Task and what starts it ____________________
Due date or how often ____________________
Backup or new owner, and who makes the decisions ____________________
Current instructions and where the file lives ____________________
Access checked by the backup on ____________________
Steps and what finished looks like ____________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
Common exception and who can decide ____________________
When to call the business owner, and what can wait ____________________
- □ Every must-do task has a named backup or a new owner.
- □ That person can find the current records and instructions.
- □ Approval limits and urgent contacts are written down.
- □ At least one real task has been rehearsed.
- □ Questions from the rehearsal have been added to the notes.
Agree what counts as urgent
Decide which problems go to the business owner and which can wait. Put that in the handover. When the office manager is back, or a month into the new owner’s first stretch on their own, go over where they got stuck and update the instructions. Then the notes are ready for whoever needs them next.
Want a hand with the next step?
Help writing procedures and SOPs. Get It Together, Denver does the organizing on site. Innovation Theory does the technical work, including AI and automation. Packages start at $5,000. The first step is a free video walk-through. Use it to work out where help would actually be useful.
If the instructions lead to a cabinet nobody can find anything in, start with office organizing in Denver.
Rather talk it through?
Call (303) 900-8931 or send a text. Tell us what’s piling up. That’s enough to start.