6 tips to Return to Work Feeling Refreshed After the Holidays

This year, returning to work after the holidays could be a bit more challenging than in the past. Why? Because most of the employees have probably been spending their free time in the same place where they work: their home.

Returning to a physical office space helps the brain return to work mode after vacation mode. However, this year it will take a more conscious effort to turn home into an office and continue to telecommute, especially if you don’t have a home office or dedicated workspace.

6 tips to Return to Work Feeling Refreshed After the Holidays

1) Be Aware of the Way You Think

Going back to work when working from home requires a little extra mental discipline. Once the holidays are over, you have to change your chip and prioritize work, leaving home chores, exercising, etc. for free time.

2) Check the Business Calendar

It is a good idea to look at the calendar one day before returning to your daily work tasks. In this way, the employee can plan meetings, as well as discriminate what is urgent from what is important.

3) Don’t Start the Day Checking Emails

Getting started on the first day back to work by checking emails can become a daunting task that can lead to frustration for many workers. Yes, there are probably hundreds of unread messages, but you have to do it in an orderly way, without stressing yourself and ranking them according to their importance.

4) Take Time to Organize Things

You need to take the first hour back to work to relocate and organize yourself: tidy up the space and log into the team’s collaborative tools. Simply communicating with a colleague has a double benefit. First, it helps you get back into a work mindset, and second, the connection is a boost to your own state of mind.

5) Have a Plan for the Day

It’s as simple as identifying which tasks you absolutely need to do and then ranking them in order of importance. Ideally, keep this list visible throughout the day so that you can refer to it when necessary. Once you’ve made your plan for the work day, it’s much easier to refocus if your mind starts to wander.

6) Be Strategic with Your Email

Without a clear plan for checking emails, the employee is likely to end up lost in their inbox for hours without discerning what is really important. Having a strategy for tackling emails not only helps you go through it with at least a little less stress, but in an orderly and more relaxed manner.

Therefore, the best way to start is by reading only the “Subjects” of each email, as well as marking with a star the messages to which they should be answered and read. Once the messages have been reviewed, it is convenient to filter them by categories and, later, work with them by following each one of them. By focusing on one type of message, they can be read faster and stay focused on work without stress.

But most of all, everyone on the team probably feels exactly the same, so it’s okay to take a little more time to get back to things on the first day of work, especially this year.