Three Strategies To Avoid The Post-Vacation Blues

So, you took the plunge and went on vacation. Congratulations! But now, at T-1 before you have to fire back up your laptop, you’ve got a terrible case of Sunday night anxiety. So bad, in fact, it’s making you wonder whether you should’ve even gone in the first place...

You’re not alone. Stress over returning to “a mountain of work” is the most common reason employees forfeit their vacation days according to the 2017 State of American Vacation Report.

Coming back to work after a vacation is a challenging and disorienting experience, particularly if you were able to fully disengage during the break. Here are three things you can do to ease your way back in and hit the ground running.

Minimize The Re-entry “Noise” Before You Leave

Set a strong Out of Office message to minimize unnecessary emails. Here are a few options for how to word it for the best results. If you get automatic notifications from a knowledge sharing site, be sure to turn those off as well so you don’t get overwhelmed with them upon your return.

Ask your team members to avoid cc’ing you on emails. Instead, ask them to write you a “While you were away” memo highlighting key decisions, new opportunities and progress which was made on key projects. Ask them to send it the Friday before you return so that you can read it on your return flight. This strategy is a low stress way to get reoriented before Monday morning. 

Put a meeting with the team on your calendar for early your first morning back so that you can ask follow-up questions and get the in-person voiceover. Make sure part of that conversation also includes a review of the current week’s priorities so that you know where to focus your attention right out of the gate.

Triage Your Email And Collaboration Activity On The Flight Home

During your return flight, quickly sort your email into two folders: FYI and Action. Viewing your emails in the conversation thread format allows you to quickly figure out where the chain ends so that you don’t have to wade through innumerable replies to determine the state of the conversation. It will also help you avoid the error of responding to a mid-conversation email rather than responding to the last one which was sent. For emails where the action required is less than 5 minutes, tackle those right away rather than filing them. If it’s going to take longer than that, just put it in the action folder and tackle it when you’re back at work.

If your team uses Slack, Basecamp or other collaboration platforms, scan the activity on high-priority projects and channels. If your technology has a weekly digest, use that to catch up quickly.

Sneak Back A Day Early To Get Caught Up

One particularly useful strategy for easing back into the work week is to set your return day for Tuesday, but actually plan to secretly return to work the prior day. This will allow you to get caught up at your own pace without suffering through the inevitable interruptions. Just make sure to keep you IM status as “unavailable” and save outgoing messages to your Draft folder rather than sending them. This will help you remain in stealth mode to truly get caught up on what you need to do.

Taking time off is essential to your health, your performance, and your long-term success. Don’t let the natural anxiety of coming back prevent you from reaping the massive benefits of going away. Particularly if you’re a leader, role-modeling recovery rituals will help your team be more aware of their importance and much more likely to incorporate them into their way of working.