If you’re anything like me you live for long weekends! Especially when the weather is as beautiful as it was this past Labour Day weekend in southern Ontario. Similar to what I wrote in my last blog – the importance of reflection, recharging and finding your special place – long weekends just like Labour Day should be treated the same. During this time, a lot of businesses are preparing for their busiest quarter and getting their kids back to school, thus it’s necessary to soak up what you can from the weekend and get geared up for the tasks that lie ahead.
However, no matter how much you love your job, getting back into the groove of things after a vacation or long weekend can be quite challenging. From the endless amount of emails, back-to-back meetings and events that occur, sometimes your body is in one place while your mind is in another – still enjoying the breeze from the beach or your backyard oasis.
In modern business, 25% of employees return to the office after a long, relaxing weekend feeling fatigued and “out of it”. So, what’s the trick to get back on the daily grind? Here are a couple of steps to follow:
If it’s your last day of your vacation or long weekend – make it a relaxful one. A vital thing to do on your last day is to relax and have some quiet time to yourself. It’s important you also get a good night’s rest, but if your long weekend doesn’t allow for that, at least plan ahead to get an hour’s early sleep so you can prep for the next day of work.
Another step that’s helped me in the long run is: try to get in a work mindset the day before. We know you won’t be able to catch up on everything in one day or even one week- but this doesn’t mean you can’t get a head start. Pace yourself appropriately so you won’t feel totally swamped the day you get back. For some projects, may need an extension and others, you may have to burn the midnight oil – but if you took that last day of the weekend to look things over, you’ll thank yourself later.
Third step you need to do is prioritize what’s important – build a list! You’re not always going to get everything done and there is always going to be more and more to complete. The elements of prioritization are simple: Know what tasks need to be done and rank them in order of priority. According to Stephen Covey of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People suggested ranking tasks across four metrics: important/not important and urgent/not urgent. Common sense, tasks both urgent and important go first, issues not important or not urgent go last, and the rest fall somewhere in between. There’s your list.
Fourth step is the most challenging. Do the hardest thing first – this is often referred to as “Eating the Frog”. This could be done either the first day you get back to work or the day before. I like to put the term procrastination in the term of avoiding something – naturally, we avoid things we don’t want to do. I have researched that Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, once said that the first thing he does in the office each day is the task he dreads the most. With this step you eliminate the dread that will sap energy away from other tasks as you postpone the inevitable.
I hope these steps have helped you as much as they’ve helped me. Welcome back!