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Both eager and slow

At this time of year, I’m usu­al­ly eager to get work things done while also feel­ing slow and reluc­tant — at the same time. I love being on vaca­tion, even though I also enjoy my job and am look­ing for­ward to what will like­ly be a fun fall. Since time moves relent­less­ly, I pre­fer to get up to speed quick­ly and get into the high pace of autumn.

So, what to do? Well, men­tion the prob­lem that the excel­lent struc­ture does­n’t solve. A sys­tem­at­ic step-by-step approach helps me (and you, if you can relate) get moving.

Do this

1. First, ask your­self why it feels slug­gish. There is a nat­ur­al and under­stand­able rea­son (which is not that you ​“are bad and should be bet­ter”).
    
2. If you find a spe­cif­ic cause, take the first step to solve it imme­di­ate­ly. Is it a dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion you know you need to have that’s weigh­ing on you? Make the call now. Is it an unpleas­ant task cloud­ing your mind? Do the small­est thing you can to start get­ting it done. Are you afraid that this fall will be like last spring? Come up with one detail in your plan­ning to do dif­fer­ent­ly start­ing now.
    
3. If the rea­son is sim­ply that you had a nice vaca­tion and need ener­gy to get going, choose a task from your to-do list that will give you just the kind of stim­u­la­tion you need:
   • choose a fun task, or
   • choose a few short tasks if you’re moti­vat­ed by check­ing things off, or
   • choose a social task where you need to col­lab­o­rate with some­one else if you’re pri­mar­i­ly moti­vat­ed by inter­act­ing with oth­ers, or
   • choose an ardu­ous task if it moti­vates you to have some­thing chal­leng­ing to tack­le. (The Aus­tri­an researcher Veroni­ka Job has found that if you believe that doing some­thing hard strength­ens you, it makes it eas­i­er.)
   • choose a task where you can com­pete against your­self or some­one else if com­pe­ti­tion inspires you. How many emails can you han­dle in ten min­utes? How fast can you approve an invoice? How few attempts can you make to find a meet­ing time with your clos­est colleagues?
   • choose five very dif­fer­ent tasks if you’re moti­vat­ed by vari­ety, or
   • choose a task that clear­ly con­tributes to one of your long-term goals if the big­ger pic­ture moti­vates you and you’re strug­gling to get start­ed with the thought, ​“What’s the point?”
      
4. If you’re still not in gear after this, go back to step 1. Even a vet­er­an out­board motor may need a few tries before it starts.

Gain momen­tum towards the future

If you try to find why you’re strug­gling to get start­ed after a vaca­tion and take at least one step to fix it, you’ll sure­ly get up to the pace you desire for the autumn. If you find a trick that helps you, you’ll also be bet­ter equipped the next time you return from a break.

How do you do it?

How do you get going when you’ve been on vaca­tion and feel slug­gish? Please write and let me know; all tips are welcome.

(Did you come back from your vaca­tion to new tasks that need to be fin­ished lat­er this fall? One tip is to make ​”lat­er” into ​”now”, and get start­ed faster!)