How to get back up and running after a break
Photo by Land O’Lakes Inc on Unsplash
We all love a good vacation, or even just a long weekend, as a break from work. But, often, that feeling of peace comes to a grinding halt the moment we step back into the office or open our emails and realize there’s a mountain of work waiting for us. Intrusive feelings of work guilt start to counteract any of the benefits that might have come out of the time away. Getting back into work after a break can feel overwhelming, and the panic may cause you to try to grab onto any activity and start working immediately. This is the wrong approach. In your haste to return to productivity, you may end up spinning your wheels on the wrong set of things instead of the work that is actually important and due soon.
To prevent this spiralling panic, here are 6 steps to help you ease back into work after a break.
1. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath and tell yourself that you are going to take your time and give yourself space to mindfully plan your next steps, and remember that doing so will actually save you time in the end.
2. Block time to to get reacquainted with your work. Much like you might build in a buffer of time after a vacation to do things like laundry and grocery shopping, it can also be helpful to block some time—a couple of hours, not minutes—to carefully and leisurely remind yourself of what you were doing and what work is coming up. This includes looking through the hundreds of emails that have piled up to simply assess what’s there. Set aside the ones that are informational to read later. Delete the ones that truly don’t matter. For the others, keep a running list of what is being asked, such as: reference letters, a colleague’s grant that needs your expertise, a student’s revised manuscript that needs your editing. In this block of time, you are not necessarily answering the emails, unless you can quickly (i.e., within 2 minutes) dispose of them, you are simply looking at what needs to be done.
3. Make note of upcoming professional and personal deadlines and the amount of work involved. As you are building the list of work, note the deadlines for each: reference letters are due in two weeks, your colleague is hoping for your grant edits in one week, the student’s manuscript revision is due at the journal next month, etc. Consider how much work is needed for each of these deadlines. Maybe the grant won’t take you long, but you know the student’s paper is going to take some work. Also note upcoming personal events. You might have a wedding to attend one weekend and football game another. What activities and time commitments are needed to make those personal events successful and to allow you to be fully present? Do you need to buy a new outfit for the wedding? Does going to the football game mean that whole day needs to be free from any work? Evaluating the activities and time commitments required for work and for personal events can help you execute the next step, which is...
4. Set priorities and make a plan. Be clear on what items on your list are important to you and what items are urgent. What are the activities that need to be done this month? What can wait until next month? What absolutely needs to be done this week? What items aren’t urgent but require consistent work so that you stay on track and don’t become completely overwhelmed later? Start to put these activities into your calendar, being mindful of the time commitment and other activities that each requires, as you had outlined in Step 3. Sometimes it can also be helpful to go old school and get one of those giant paper calendars that makes it easier to see all of your upcoming deadlines and personal events at a glance.
5. Don’t overschedule yourself, expect the unexpected, and be realistic about your time. Plans don’t always work out accordingly, and other work will pop up. Some of that new work will even be urgent, and you might have to bump a few of your activities down a few spots in the priority list. If your week is completely overscheduled, any new activities can completely derail your progress on your already urgent to-do list. Building in contingency time, or even just putting a hold on your calendar for a few hours a week, can help you stay flexible and accommodate anything unexpected that pops up.
6. Schedule time for hobbies and rest. In all of your prioritization and scheduling of tasks, don’t forget to schedule in time to take care of yourself and give yourself something to look forward to!
Coming back to work after a vacation or a break can sometimes feel like you’ve just stepped into quicksand and you’re already sinking. But, with a deep breath, a list, and a calendar, you can effectively spread out the work in a way that is productive without being overwhelming. If you need support, book a call with me here, and we’ll make a plan together.
