Notes on leave, TOIL, and running a team
Practical guides on time off, TOIL, and swapping the spreadsheet for something your team will actually use.
Book leave from Claude or ChatGPT: what it does, and what it won't
Say “book next Tuesday off” to the assistant you already have open, and it checks your balance, your team's cover and the bank holidays first. Here's what the connection does, where it stops, and how to try it.
· 5 min read
How to turn 25 days of annual leave into 53 days off in 2027
England and Wales get 8 bank holidays in 2027, and most of them land right next to a weekend. Book the working days in between and 25 days of leave stretches into six proper breaks — here's exactly which dates to request.
· 7 min read
Vacation Tracker alternatives: what the free plan skips
Vacation Tracker's free plan is genuinely free — unlimited seats, real Slack and Teams integration. It just skips the one feature that sends most teams looking for an alternative in the first place.
· 5 min read
Timetastic alternatives, and how to actually choose one
A dozen comparison pages will tell you Timetastic is missing something. It probably isn't — here's what actually pushes teams to switch, and three questions worth asking before you do.
· 5 min read
How TOIL actually works (and where policies quietly break)
Time off in lieu sounds simple until someone asks 'when does mine expire?' Here's what actually needs to be true for a TOIL policy to hold up.
· 6 min read