Here's a nice quick piece of advice for you that I picked up from Michael Hyatt that you are going to love.

When you are heading off on holiday, or on a prolonged absence from the office, take great care in how you set your Out Of Office. Use this as a tool to give yourself a little more time to respond to the inevitable influx of mail that is going to be collected in your absence.

If you are due to arrive back from leave on a Monday after a week away, set your Out Of Office auto reply to say that you're not returning until Tuesday. If it's a longer absence away, you may wish to say Wednesday, or even further ahead.

Why stop at altering your return date? If your last day of work is a Friday, declare yourself unavailable from this day on rather than the coming Monday. This gives you a great opportunity to tie up your affairs and prepare for your holiday without the worry of people expecting responses from you all day long.

Clearly, this isn't going to be suitable for all jobs, but if this is something that you feel you can leverage, it can be a real game changer when you need it most.