Holidays can be excellent breaks from work that allow you to gain rest and spend valuable time with friends and family, engaging in fun activities and hobbies. When you return to work, there are some steps you can follow to ensure you return to your productive and motivated mindset. Exploring some tips on returning to work after holidays can help you adjust effectively to the work environment. In this article, we explain why it’s important to adjust back to work after a holiday and share some helpful tips to make your return to work more productive.
Why is it important to adjust back to work after a holiday?
When returning to work after a holiday, you might experience some emotions that make it challenging to return to a working routine. Depending on your personality and circumstances, you might feel unmotivated to commence your duties again after having time away from work. Some individuals often feel reluctant to get back into their role, particularly after the relaxation they experience during holidays. Even if you’re happy to return to work, there may still be adjustments before you reach your pre-holiday productivity.
There are many steps and activities during and after your holidays that can help you adjust to your working routine. Adjusting to your work responsibilities after a holiday can be important for several reasons. It ensures you’re a productive team member, minimises the chance for errors and helps you maintain motivation to excel in your position.
Below, you can explore 12 tips to consider when returning to work after a vacation:
1. Factor in time differences
Depending on where you travelled during your holidays, there might be substantial time differences between your home and the holiday destination. If you spent several weeks in another time zone, your internal body clock might adjust to that time zone. For example, after returning home, it might be late afternoon local time, but your body clock thinks it’s early morning. This can make falling asleep at reasonable hours challenging, lowering your energy levels. Consider having a few days at home before returning to work, allowing you to reset your internal body clock.
2. Plan an easy first day
You might feel excited about returning to work or reluctant, but regardless of how you feel, it’s often helpful to have an easy first day. During your holiday, you might have felt relaxed because you had no deadlines or urgent tasks that required your attention. If you return to work and have a busy day with deadlines and urgent responsibilities, it might feel overwhelming. By planning an easy first day, you can give yourself time to organise yourself, set goals, socialise with colleagues and discuss operations with supervisors.
3. Exercise
It might seem unrelated to returning to work, but exercising when you get back from a holiday can be an excellent method for boosting your endorphins. Depending on your personality, working environment and values, you might feel disheartened about the prospect of returning to work, making it challenging to produce endorphins that keep your mental state healthy. An excellent method for maintaining a positive attitude about returning to work is to exercise. There are many methods of exercising that may suit you, such as going to the gym, swimming, walking or running.
4. Organise yourself
Organising your work and personal life can be crucial aspects of returning to peak productivity. A messy work environment with documents or tools scattered throughout the office can be distracting and cause an unhealthy environment. If you spent weeks away from home during your holiday, there might also be an abundance of work required at home, such as cleaning the house and tending to the garden. Before you absorb yourself in your work routine and responsibilities, consider organising your working and personal life to minimise distractions, allowing you to focus on your tasks and duties.
5. Inform everyone of your return
Depending on your job, your colleagues might immediately know of your return. In some working environments, though, you might liaise with different department teams, business partners, clients and remote colleagues. Depending on the communication channels and systems you use, you might have an availability status or notifications informing them of your absence. It’s often important to change your status to available and remove absence notifications. You might also send emails to individuals, such as clients and business partners, informing them of your return and availability for communication.
6. Communicate with your colleagues and supervisors
Depending on your career and responsibilities, you might work independently or in team environments with many supervisors and colleagues. Colleagues, teams and supervisors can be important in helping you return to work. Human interactions, such as simple discussions with colleagues or working together on a project, can produce endorphins and inspire motivation. Consider finding opportunities to work with your colleagues and engage in conversation. Communicating with colleagues and supervisors can also be an excellent method for identifying changes in the workplace, such as resource locations, new processes, additional procedures and new clients.
7. Sort your inbox
If you regularly receive an abundance of emails each day, it’s often helpful to prepare yourself for a substantial amount of emails in your inbox. When you open your inbox and find hundreds of emails, it might feel overwhelming, but sorting through them and organising your inbox can be a crucial step in returning to work productively. There are different methods of sorting through large quantities of emails. You might review each email by date, inbox type or email size. An excellent method might be to review emails by senders, which can help you identify urgent emails first.
8. Create a to-do-list
When returning to work, there might be several tasks and duties requiring your attention. Creating a to-do list can help you prioritise and visualise your immediate tasks. It might feel overwhelming to return to work after a vacation and find many tasks and responsibilities awaiting. Your to-do list can help you organise your tasks, which usually allows you to prioritise and complete them methodically. A to-do list can help you identify how much work you have, allowing you to approach your duties calmly rather than feeling overwhelmed.
9. Set goals for yourself
Before your holiday, you might’ve previously set long-term and short-term goals in the workplace. When you return to work, consider reviewing the goals to assess your progress and the likelihood of achieving your targets. If you haven’t set any goals, consider identifying achievable goals and targets you can reach. By having goals to work toward, you can improve your motivation to complete your tasks and responsibilities. This can often be beneficial, as you might experience a lack of motivation and purpose when returning to your duties after a holiday.
10. Practise a healthy mindset
Some individuals might experience negative emotions after returning to work, depending on their personality and life circumstances. If you’re feeling unmotivated and saddened by the prospect of returning to work, it can be extremely helpful to practise healthy thoughts. Consider brainstorming and writing down all the positives about returning to work. It might be that you can start saving money for your next holiday. There might also be positives about work itself, such as spending time with your colleagues or performing tasks that provide satisfaction and levels of joy.
11. Research updates in your industry
If you’re returning to work after a holiday, the industry you operate in might’ve had some developments, such as new technologies or processes. Similar to communicating with colleagues to identify workplace changes, you can research news online to discover changes in your industry. Remaining informed about your industry is often a crucial step in returning to your productive mindset. It’s also usually beneficial for roles that involve strategic planning, such as forecasting markets, analysing trends and developing marketing strategies.
12. Start planning your next holiday
While it might seem counter-productive to start thinking about your next holiday, planning your next trip might give you a goal to work toward. It can also help you maintain and improve a positive attitude. Your next trip might be in several months or it might be in several weeks. Regardless of when you intend your next holiday, it can serve as a reward for your hard work and commitment to your current tasks and responsibilities.
Author: Workcare Wellness
