The blog

I am guess­ing that you by now have been back at work for one or a cou­ple of weeks after being away for your Christ­mas holiday.

What was it like to be back?

Did things get mov­ing in a leisure­ly and com­fort­able tem­po, or did it go from calm to chaos in a day? Did you slide back into your pro­fes­sion­al role effort­less­ly and felt com­plete­ly at ease, or did you feel uncom­fort­able putting your suit back on?

You will have a hol­i­day again soon

Thank­ful­ly, this was not the last time you had some time off work. In not too long you will start to unwind again, take a few days or weeks off and then go back to work again. If you feel that you would wish for the next start-up to run a lit­tle smoother, this is def­i­nite­ly pos­si­ble. Eval­u­ate how you expe­ri­enced com­ing back to work today and refine this process before it is time for the next holiday.

Do this

1. Turn off your phone, lean back and take a moment to reflect.
   • Has your cal­en­dar been ful­ly booked or have you had just enough appoint­ments in the week or weeks fol­low­ing your return to the office?
   
   
   • How did the pro­cess­ing of all the e‑mails you received dur­ing your time off go? Was it a piece of cake or have you still not read all of them? Had you set aside enough time to process and address all the received e‑mails? Would it had sim­pli­fied your return if you had checked your e‑mail once in a while dur­ing your long leave in order to rid your­self of e‑mails with low pri­or­i­ty that you would have want­ed gone by the time of you got back and got busy with more impor­tant matters?
   
   
   • Was it easy to get going with what you have to do now, or should you have made bet­ter prepa­ra­tions for your return before leav­ing, and there­by set your­self up for a fly­ing start, been able to hit the ground run­ning and not wast­ed time and ener­gy get­ting going?
   
   
   • Did you have sev­er­al days of trav­el­ing booked dur­ing the first week back at work? Would you have want­ed a few days at the office first before hit­ting the road? Or didn’t you have any trips planned in the first time back and hence felt that it was dif­fi­cult to real­ly get­ting up to speed again?
   
   
   • How are the weeks to come planned? Are you as ful­ly booked as you were pri­or to your hol­i­day and to the extent which you had promised your­self you wouldn’t be again? Or, do they rep­re­sent and reflect your ide­al week­ly pace?
   
   
   • Were you sur­prised by how dif­fi­cult it was to get going again? Per­haps you should book a cou­ple of inspir­ing lunch­es, cock­tail par­ties or sem­i­nars to attend right after get­ting back the next time so that you get moti­vat­ed and get up to speed faster?
   
   
2. Make it explic­it­ly clear to your­self what you wish to do dif­fer­ent­ly before your next holiday.


3. Take out your cal­en­dar and write down what your con­crete­ly need to adjust or refine for­mu­lat­ed as a to-do-task with a due-date pri­or to, dur­ing or after your holiday.


4. If you need to keep the first days back at the office free from meet­ings, ​“block” this free time in the cal­en­dar right away.


5. If you wish to receive a real boost of moti­va­tion in your next first week back at work – call your most inspir­ing friend or col­league today and offer to buy him or her lunch dur­ing the first week back after your next holiday.

…and enjoy your fore­sight after get­ting back from the next holiday

If you make con­crete changes today while you still have this start fresh in mind, in prepa­ra­tion for the next start, it will be much more pleas­ant. You will get going faster and will process every­thing that has piled up dur­ing your leave with less effort. Per­haps you suc­ceed in prepar­ing for your next return in such a way that com­ing back to work becomes tru­ly enjoyable.

What is your way?

How do you ensure that you have an opti­mal start when you return back to work from being on hol­i­day? Feel free to leave a com­ment to let me and oth­er read­ers know your thoughts.