Vacations are necessary for me, and I think most people. I took Thursday and Friday off last week and traveled to the Dominican Republic to celebrate a friend who is getting married in a few months. It was a fun time. Warm weather, sun, golf, good food, beach, pool, and most importantly many conversations and laughs with old friends. It is quite surreal spending time away from kids for a few days. It is great to get away from constant parenting once in a while but I also missed them. And when I got back they seemed like they grew up in 48 hours.
Back to the point I want to make about returning from vacations. I’ve learned the importance of mindset on the first day back at work after a vacation. It is important to take the vacation and truly enjoy yourself during it. I used to take less vacation because I didn’t like coming back and feeling out of the loop and catching up.
Rather than taking less vacation, I simply switch my mindset when I return. My mindset is to ease into the first day back. I do this by giving myself the morning to be meeting free. At least 830AM to 11AM or so. In that time I catch up on data, weekly planning, team priorities, and email/slack. I like to do this off a fresh night’s sleep. I find after spending 2 to 3 hours in these areas, I reap the recovery benefits of the vacation and I dive back into work with a mindset of excitement and control rather than letting calendar or other people’s priorities dictate my first half of the day which leads me feeling more stressed and bored than excited and engaged.
Take the vacation, come back and be deliberate about your time for the first half of the day.