Not wanting to go back to work after vacation? Here's how to make it easier
Maybe you know it: you look nicely tanned, try to be zen and enjoy that very last day of il dolce far niente, but your mind is already on that Monday morning meeting. How delightful is that? You're not alone, as many people find it difficult to get back to work.
The week off sometimes seems hardly worth it, because you step out of the rat race so completely that it takes more energy to get back into it a bit. The solution according to digital wellness expert (you don't know it exists until you know it exists) Mark Ostach is simple: start your return before you leave.
A week before departure, I always get lost in the service of Thuisbezorgd, because I have no energy left to cook. The house is a mess and I often work ahead on some deadlines. Nothing wrong with that, because I'm almost leaving, I thought. But the trick is to leave things organized behind, so that the week after your vacation doesn't feel like hell.
Ostach explains that the secret to a calm return lies in how your week was before your departure. Turning off your laptop around midnight, not having lunch because you're busy and need to arrange last-minute things creates a restless feeling. Be as clear as possible in managing expectations with your colleagues and clients instead of rushing to finish things quickly. Take the time to prepare your work before your vacation, it's part of it. By piling things up, you achieve the opposite. Make sure to clearly hand over things to your colleagues if necessary. And otherwise, you're back when you're back. If people know this, they remain much calmer. And so do you.
What is also important? Your type of vacation. I don't know what you think of when you hear the word vacation, but for me, a cocktail, beach chair, and book certainly come to mind, while sometimes you just rush through an entire city during a city trip, which doesn't always work out to be very relaxing. Do you like to stress out on vacation? Also plan some downtime in between, so you don't stay ‘on’ all the time.
Finally: make sure your vacation itself doesn't become a to-do. Having to relax, having to dawdle, and having to enjoy? Your mind immediately feels pressured again and sees it as yet another task on the endless list of tasks. So are you going away this summer? Take a quarter of an hour each day in the coming weeks to prepare, it will make coming home much calmer.
Source: USA Today
