Vacation gives you stress

And have you already booked a holiday with your toes in the sand, sangria-consuming, pearl-white beach-like holiday? Yummm. The holiday season is officially open and we are going to enjoy it to the fullest. Thought you.

First, just knock off a hundred hours of overtime behind your desk, extend your passport, score a new summer wardrobe, get someone crazy enough to water your plants... And your cat if possible. At the start of my last vacation, I was an hour before departure to Schiphol, frantically packing my wardrobe into a suitcase. I had no idea where I had left my passport (think, think, when did you last use it?). And the garbage bag was still filled to the brim, so I had to make a quick trip to the container to keep the house fresh. With sweat on my forehead, I stood in line for customs. I checked in properly, and the gate hasn’t changed, right? Man, man, man, and I’m even childless. No idea what kind of magic tricks mothers pull in such a situation.

Then the excellent news popped into my mailbox: I am not alone. As in: not at all alone. Forty percent of working Dutch people in the office suffer from holiday stress, says a study by the Dutch Professional Association of Professional Organizers. No idea such a thing existed, by the way. And yes, among parents with children living at home, it’s even a degree worse. Forty-nine percent is sweating at departure. Poor souls. The reason? The handover is a mess or they have no one to take over the tasks at all. And that means making phone calls from the holiday address and keeping an eye on the email in the morning hours. How cozy for la familia.

If you’re thinking: ‘that’s me’, then I have tips. The Professional Association is not the worst and came up with handy helpers to start the holiday tranquilo. Read and learn, I would say.

“No idea what kind of magic tricks mothers pull in such a situation”

Stripes please

The well-known to-do list helps you calmly enter the holiday. And don’t go writing and crossing off things like a madman, because that won’t make you a better holidaymaker. Make a list of what’s important, in order. Grab a thick, fat marker and underline what must be done and above what can wait. Ha, got you there, didn’t I? But there are indeed things that can wait until after your vacation.

Build in extra time before and after departure

Unsubscribe yourself from appointments, meetings, workshops, and other time-consuming stuff. Do this at least a day before and a day after your vacation. This way, you have a few minutes to spend on things that really need to be done instead of sitting through a boring conversation that you could have missed as a person who still needs to pack and is going on vacation in three hours.

Out-of-office trick

Dear people who regularly email me, please don’t read any further. This is the solution, this will be my rule in anxious holiday times. I set my automatic reply too early and too late. Ha, I can happily clear all those emails tomorrow without you expecting a reply from me. I think it’s a good one.

Make an appointment

With your colleagues, with your family, with the bartender behind your holiday bar... Clearly agree whether you a) are working or not b) are reachable and c) at what times. This way, your dear one isn’t left hanging when you open your laptop to answer an email and your colleague isn’t pacing the office floor when you finally come back from the beach chair.

Hold on to it

This is for your post-holiday mode. Because after two weeks, those sunny, lazy hours really seem long gone and you’re back in stress mode. You don’t want that. Think carefully about what you enjoyed immensely on holiday and hold on to that. Having a little wine after dinner on the terrace, having breakfast outside on Sunday, or a boat trip on the weekend. Really, it’s not hard to fake a holiday in your own country.

Adios, ciao, au revoir, buhbye. Have a well-rested holiday, preferably before departure.