Taking a summer holiday is necessary but it certainly disrupts flows and habits.
You worked hard, you took the break you deserved, and you switched yourself out of work mode. Now you’re coming back, and you need to realign your perspective.
It’s hard to act as if nothing has changed and doing so might set you up for failure. Safely and strategically ramping up work your productivity to restore yourself to rock star employee mode is definitely a process.
Taking the right approach will help you maximize your work productivity all the way up until your next vacation.
How to Get Your Work Productivity Back
1. Make the Most of Your Time Off
You really need to enjoy your time off. Giving yourself a break and time to relax is crucial for work-life balance.
Get everything out of your system. Unwind to the max. Don’t let the stress of planning a holiday get to you and stop you from enjoying your break.
You need to use this time to the fullest extent. Catch up on a ton of lost sleep.
Do all the things you’ve really wanted to do, but haven’t been able to get around to.
Your vacation can be productive, even if you’re not reaching any work productivity goals.
Be productive with your personal goals while you have the time and the freedom to do so. They won’t be hanging over your head by the time you return to work.
2. Get Back Into Your Self Care Routine
It might seem counterintuitive to start focusing on yourself right after you’ve taken so much time to let loose, but it’s very important.
You probably fell into bad habits, like getting too little sleep or eating a lot of junk food. In order to have the energy you need to be productive, you’ll need to get back to your self-care routine.
Set a bedtime and make a meal plan that incorporates some balance.
Get back to journaling, meditating, or doing whatever it is you do to help you de-stress in a healthy way.
Revisit great habits you’ve been lax on, and be sure that you’re caring for yourself to increase work productivity.
You need to be the best version of yourself in order to bring the best version of yourself back to work with you.
3. Get Reorganized
Setting yourself up for maximum work productivity starts with the way you organize.
If your home is organized and you have a plan and routine to get you through the week with ease, you can get a decent night’s sleep and leave home-stress behind. It won’t loom over you like a raincloud when you return to work.
When you get back to work, make it a priority to organize your desk.
Make a list of all the most important things you should immediately get to upon returning, like answering emails. You’ll have a small guide to go by, making you less likely to feel overwhelmed or freaked out.
4. Commit Some Extra Time
If you’ve been gone for a while, you might need to reacquaint yourself with your environment.
Small changes might have gradually taken place over the course of a couple weeks and that can affect your work productivity. But if you weren’t there to adapt as things happened, you walked into an environment with some abrupt and distinct differences.
Try to commit a little extra time to finding out what you missed and refamiliarizing yourself.
If you come in a little earlier than most of your coworkers, you can get a head start on the process.
Read all those memos that rolled out while you were gone. Look at the notices on the board in the breakroom. Tend to all the little tasks to make your work life easier.
You can also use this time to get to know the ins and outs of current projects you’ll be entering while they’re in progress.
You won’t slow down the rest of your team if you take extra time to research and read everything surrounding the project and come up with a list of questions.
They can give you the answers you need and you can start working on a current project almost immediately.
5. Slowly Get Back Into the Swing of Things
Don’t try to jump back in with both feet. Even the most productive people need to regroup and slowly acclimate themselves to a schedule that’s becoming increasingly full with each passing second.
It makes no sense to get directly back into the heart of your work when you don’t really know what’s going on.
Don’t agree to go to any meetings or take any work outside of routine things you’ve done hundreds of times before until you’ve given yourself ample opportunity.
The things you’ve gleaned from committing a little more time will prepare you for what lies ahead and help you reignite your work productivity.
6. Give Yourself Enough Downtime
Take your breaks.
Life is all about little breaks. It’s in the moments where we step away and clear our minds that we prepare ourselves to come back better and stronger.
While it might seem like you’ve missed a lot while you were gone and you may feel some pressure to catch up, give yourself enough short breaks to clear your mind and process what you’re learning.
You’ll retain the information better if you look into one thing at a time and that will boost work productivity.
Take some notes. Have a cup of coffee, and come back and repeat the process with each new thing you’re trying to learn.
You won’t lose the nuances in the chaos.
7. Keep Things Manageable
When it comes time to actually getting work done, prevent yourself from running toward the bigger picture.
Look at everything as a series of small details if you want to increase work productivity. It makes it easier to work through a project the right way the first time without feeling overwhelmed.
If everything is bite-sized, you don’t have to worry about biting off more than you can chew.
Another advantage of breaking things down into smaller pieces is that every detail will have your utmost attention. This means your work will be less likely to require revisions, effectively making the most of your time.
It’s going to take you a little while to get your engine warmed up again, and that’s perfectly fine. The longer you were gone, the more you missed.
It’s wiser to start slowly and do things right than it is to start abruptly and get confused and overwhelmed.
Pace yourself, and you’ll become a productivity machine at work.
About The Author
Amanda Singh is a project manager, working as a part of the team behind Sitecraft, an experienced materials handling equipment provider. Overseeing numerous projects and working with different teams has provided Amanda with experience, which she now shares with other team leaders and managers out there.
