Stuck In Holiday Mode? Here’s 3 Tips To Get Back To Your Productive Self.
Returning to work after a well-deserved holiday is hard.
Your sleep and food routines are off; and your work is non-existent. This can make the initial weeks of returning a slog as you tackle the inbox avalanche. However, it doesn’t have to be the harsh abrupt ending to our holiday we fear.
You can make transitioning from holiday to work mode as smooth as the plane ride home (hopefully) with these 3 simple tips.
Photo by Elijah Fox on Unsplash
Eat Smaller Healthier Lunches.
Those repeated trips with packed plates to the all-inclusive buffet has made your stomach greedy.
While it’s fine on holiday to stuff your face followed by an afternoon nap (we’ve all done it) it doesn’t go down well with your manager at the next desk. If you want to achieve anything in the afternoon you need to eat less.
As you return from holiday your meal size follows you home and lunches are bigger essentially writing off any work you had planned in the afternoons. No time to meal prep with traveling home you convince yourself you’ll start when you get the chance but for now your lunch is a big mac, a footlong sub, or a dense collection of high carbs and sweet treats setting your productivity level to zero. It’s a well-known fact that large and unhealthy meals decrease your energy levels which you may combat with a caffeine injection only to crash again! Heavy and unhealthy meals are trapping you in holiday mode and you can’t be productive when your body believes it’s time to rest.
Indulging in excessive buffet trips on vacation may satisfy your stomach temporarily, but bringing back those habits can sabotage your productivity. Ikigai is a book on the secrets to a long and happy life with the Ikigai diet promoting eating 80% of your stomach capacity. Don’t pack your holiday diet in your suitcase, leave it on holiday.
Look Forwards Not Backwards.
It’s nice to reminisce about the amazing adventures you’ve had wishing you were back to snowboarding down mountains, surfing 100ft waves, or backpacking in Asia.
No matter how wonderful your adventures are however they are a weight anchoring you in the past. Constant daydreams of your holidays and having a ‘I wish I was back’ mindset stops you from switching on work mode as your mind is too busy wishing it was somewhere else. It’s time to put your holiday behind you and swiftly, if someone asks how it was reply ‘it was good thanks’ and move on. When getting into the mindset to focus on work I like to put the blinders on so to speak, I set my status to DND, put noise cancelling headphones on, and play soundscapes. This tells my brain it’s time to focus. It’s great to look at the memories made but done get stuck there, you can’t complete the work in front of you when your mind is in other places.
Looking back at your holiday is making it hard to look forward, put it behind you and get back into work mode. Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal THE productivity YouTuber is filled with techniques on how you can get and stay focussed while making work fun at the same time. Don’t get trapped in the past, leave your holiday behind you and look forward.
Strategically Plan Your Holiday.
How much work did you ever really get done when returning to work mid-week?
Flying home on Tuesday and back to work on Wednesday will result in achieving nothing until Monday. Returning home often looks like this; fly home, relax (because oddly sitting on a plane for hours is tiring), order take away, go to bed.
As we’ve seen your body isn’t ready to wake up the next day and do its best work, your routines are all set to holiday mode resulting in chaotic limbo stage of getting back to normal life. This stage requires getting the shopping, unpacking, washing your clothes, and climatising all of which are fitted around work, instead take an extra day’s holiday or plan to arrive back on Friday to have the weekend. By doing this you can rush through this dull limbo stage and return to work bright eyed and busy tailed Monday.
Returning to work midweek from holiday results it little to no work as get back into normal life. Why not extend your holiday by an extra day or two and have the weekend to re-calibrate before returning to the grind?
Bonus Tip: Unpack DAY 1! (OK Day 2).
That over packed suitcase sat in the corner of your bedroom is imprisoning you to holiday mode like a ball and chain.
How much time goes by before you unpack when you arrive home? The holiday is only completely over when you unpack. Underpinning each tip is really a mindset shift, Minimalism is a practice of decluttering your life creating an environment that feels less chaotic. This reduction promotes a sense of calm making it easier to focus so don’t leave this clutter hanging around and rid your mind of thinking about it.
As mentioned, we want to put our holiday behind us leaving a 23kg reminder around will only hold you back from switching to work mode.
Recap.
Making the switch from holiday to work mode can be made easy with these 3 tips:
Leave your holiday diet on holiday by eating smaller healthier meals reclaiming your afternoons.
Don’t get trapped in the past and look forwards putting your holiday behind you and moving on.
Plan your trip to give you the time to get back into the flow of normal life arriving home Friday for the weekend or take an extra day.
Declutter your environment so you can focus better by unpacking your suitcase DAY 1/ 2 putting the holiday behind you.