How to manage your return to work after a holiday
The children are back at school, are you now back at work? Here’s some advice, let me know if it helps.
1. Plan your day of return – Spend at least a day at home before returning to work to deal with personal and household tasks and to get your sleep patterns back to normal if you have travelled across time zones. Rather than face a full 5 days back at work could you return on a Thursday so you only face a short week?
2. Messages received, plan in advance – Set up auto messages for phone and email letting people know when you will be back, and you can fib and add on an extra day. Even better have your auto message set as ‘all messages received whilst away will be deleted, please resend after <return date>’. If you can’t do this and you return to 1,000+ don’t plan to deal with them all in one day. Gradually deal with them over the coming week. If anything is urgent they’ll send it again.
3. Prioritise your work – You can’t deal with 2 weeks back up in a day or two, so be realistic. Focus on what is important and urgent.
4. Don’t stay late to catch up – We can often feel tempted to work late to deal with the back log, but it is much better to keep the evenings free as time for you so you can keep the holiday feeling a bit longer.
5. Plan a treat. Maybe not another 2 week holiday but a weekend away or even a day in the country, something that will again take you out of your normal daily life will give you something to look forward to.
6. Remind yourself of what you like about the job – It’s too easy to feel dissatisfied with the job when you compare it to a pleasurable holiday, so think about some of the good things about the job and don’t moan to others about how you wish you were still away.
Denise Taylor is a double award winning career coach and Chartered Psychologist with Amazing People, established in 1998. When you are unsure of your career future, need help with job search or seek to improve your presence in an online world, Denise can help. Denise is the author of 7 books including How To Get A Job In A Recession, Now You’ve Been Shortlisted and Fat to Fantastic
