Coming back to work after a pleasant holiday can be rough. You want more time off, but you might also have a hard time picking up where you left off. This old writer’s trick can help.
Photo by Maarten van Maanen
While it can be quite helpful to write yourself a to-do list before you leave for vacation, that list won’t help very much if you can’t remember why you need to do those things. That’s why Alexandra Samuel at Harvard Business Review recommends you “park on a downhill slope”:
A common bit of wisdom on writing is to “park on a downhill slope”: wrap up your day’s writing by leaving yourself a note about where you intend to pick up the next day. It’s actually easier to ease yourself into the next step of a project that’s already underway than to start from a blank page, so be sure to “park” at least a couple of projects on a downhill slope by writing yourself a note about where you plan to pick up again on your return.
Now you’ll know what you need to do and why that’s important to the goals you set before you disappeared into bliss. Make your message to yourself thorough and write it in a way that will immediately click with your brain. You want to instantly remember what your train of thought was. When you get back to work, your mind will be able to jump to the right mindset without as much wasted time.
Ease the Pain of Returning to Work After Time Off [Harvard Business Review]
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