First day back from your holiday and feel like you have never been away? The residual effects from a holiday can fade a quickly as your tan. In a recent survey, more than half the respondents reported that within the first three days of returning to work they felt as if they had never been away and that stress levels were as high as ever.
For many, it takes a few days to emotionally leave the office, and then you start entering the office a couple of days before your return. So a week’s break only gives you a couple of days if relaxation.
If you are not among those who come back from their holiday refreshed, re-energised and raring to go, there are some practical steps you can take to help beat those post-holiday blues.
I don’t like Mondays
Returning to work on a Tuesday can be helpful – not only do you avoid the normally hectic atmosphere of a Monday, but you also have a shorter week. If possible, set up an auto-responder on your e-mail to let people know that firstly you are away, and secondly when you will be back. If practical, you might want to put the date you are returning as one day past the actual date you will be back to give yourself some breathing space.
Change the message on your voicemail to indicate that you are away and when you will be returning. Again, if practical, state the day after you plan to return to stop yourself being inundated with calls.
Write yourself a to-do list for when you return, including meetings, calls to make, current projects and things left before you went on holiday that now must be done. Leave notes on any work that you have on your desk as to its status and what the next step is. This way, either someone will read it and know exactly what to do or you will have a reminder of what you have to do when you return.
If possible, give some of your responsibilities to someone else during your absence – it will lessen the load when you get back.
Overwhelming
Returning to the job can be overwhelming. There may be stacks of work, new projects, voicemails and hundreds of e-mails to answer. Breaking everything down to manageable chunks can help alleviate the stress.
Find your pre-holiday to-do list and check to see what needs to be accomplished immediately. Sort the work out on your desk in order of priority. What needs immediate attention and what can be left until tomorrow or next week?
Listen to your voicemail and, after writing down the messages, prioritise ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’, and ‘next week’.
Before going through your e-mails, set up a few temporary folders to help you sort and prioritise them. Alternatively you might want to make a folder for each day of the week. Either way this should stop you becoming to overwhelmed and allow you to pay some attention to any new e-mails you receive.
Allow yourself a set amount of time each day to deal with the e-mails you received while you were away. Don’t feel that everything on your desk needs to be completed on your first day back. You will end up feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
Finally, start planning your next holiday straight away. Have a wish list of all the places you would like to visit, for example, start thinking and talking. It maybe sooner or later but having something to plan for and look forward to will always cheer you up.
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