“I sort my emails by the name of the most important person who has sent them and respond only to those,” S said, only half-jokingly.
We were discussing “hacks” to ease into work after a long holiday.
I know, I know. There are no hacks to ease into anything after a holiday, except one more holiday.
But, in all seriousness, this is a Substack about work, and I will stick to the script and talk about getting the mojo back at work after a holiday.
What’s your biggest blue when back from a vacation? The gazillion emails? Those open threads of discussions that seem to be a distant dream? Deliverables that were ony important when you left that have become urgent because of the elapsed holiday time?
Let’s attack them one by one.
Pandora’s Box
I have 1,234 unread emails and I am dreading them, we often say when we are back from break. But, what we fail to acknowledge to ourselves is that, for every 1 email that is addressed to us, a 100 simply have us in the witness box, on CC. Redefining the number of emails in our head is the first step to sanity.
The second step is to not sign up for any meetings the day we come back to work, rather focusing on the emails themselves so FOMO can leave us as the Damocles sword of some hyper-important email we missed.
For the record, if something is hyper-important, our WhatsApps would have been inundated by now or worse still, a drone dispatched to our vacation place.
There are folks who swear by the zero mailbox policy, a clear OOO mentioning those emails won’t be answered and to direct them to xyz team members. That may not be for everyone, and I won’t feign here that I follow such a policy, so not analysing that one further.
Penelope’s Loom
I am tripping on Greek mythology presently, so allow me my indulgences a bit. Penelope of the Odysseus fame kept weaving a shroud all day and then unweaving it all night. The threads that never stayed.
Sometimes when I come back from a long break, I feel lost, as if all the threads I weaved together have come undone, as if someone else made random weaves that don’t make sense anymore.
Firstly, don’t open new threads of discussions just before a holiday. Pointless. Waste of time that could have otherwise been employed gainfully in closing some open threads.
Secondly, take copious notes on paper or notepad or Notion or wherever all you GenZs are taking notes these days. Ok, ok, voice record if you want to do that. And, identify one person who is going to be around in those meetings when you aren’t, and give them a heads up you are going to pick their brains once you are back so you can get upto speed on all the changes and ironed out kinks. Well, not all. But as much as humanely possible and required.
Thirdly, it is alright if you don’t get everything at one go as soon as you are back. You will get it eventually, and a day here or there won’t make a difference in your long and tenacious career.
Achilles’ Heel
I don’t know what your Achilles’ heel is, but mine has always been important projects that I leave midway while I go on vacation. I mean, one simply cannot schedule downtime along with kid’s school holidays and spouse’s ideal vacation time, while also finishing a project.
And by the time I come back, the project has already become urgent, not just important. Where did the time go, I wonder. “In the resort, dear. In the resort.”
Can we all start planning project deliverables while keeping our holidays in mind? Easier said than done, and we think we are superpeople with superpowers who will somehow get our work done in the middle of the woods, but why? There is a reason vacation time exists, and that is to recharge.
Do you have a story? Or a hack?
Nothing more. No more gyaan. No more Greek heroes and heroines either. It is a lovely Friday, and I will let you go and revel in it, drooling over the weekend, after which a year of exciting work beckons. Meanwhile, if you have some tried and tested ideas on managing ‘em vacation blues, as always pour them away, either a response to this e-mail or in the comments box on my Substack.
P.S. Views strictly personal.
Excellent points! One thing I do that you can add to your list above - find related messages, move them all to whichever folder they belong/ delete, except for the top one that you can read/ act/: ignore if it's beyond 2 weeks. I feel anything beyond two weeks that still needs your response would have had a more recent follow up email or a msg through other modes of communication!