Taking time away from the office is a fantastic way to lower your stress levels, improve your productivity, and boost your mood. But if you aren’t careful, work problems can follow you on vacation and leave you feeling even more stressed than before you left. Here are a few things you should do at work before you leave to make your long weekend as relaxing as possible.
Shift your schedule ahead of time
If the holiday occurs on a day where you have standing meetings, reach out to those people and either reschedule or condense the meeting into an email update. Let clients and partners know ahead of time that you will be logged off from work and offer up times for the following week. For other housekeeping tasks or internal items, set blocks of time on your calendar throughout the week to accomplish them. Treating them like a meeting ensures that you won’t forget.
Make a to-do list
This is the mantra of many professionals. If you’re not one of those people who jot down the things you have to do in black and white, it’s time for you to start, so you can better organise your week ahead. Use simple post-its in different colours to show the importance and priority of the tasks that await you in the following week. For the tech-savvy, there are several websites and apps for this, so that electronic to-do list will be available on your smartphone, with the option of setting reminders to notify you in good time, creating recurring events, etc. That way, you easily save precious minutes, or even hours, when you get back from your long weekend.
Tidy your workspace
Organisation is key! Make sure your desk is neat and tidy before you leave the office. Do not just shuffle a couple of papers and stack files in a neat pile. Think about what can you manage to get done before you leave? What is the most important file you need to get back to when you’re back in the office? As well as tidying up your physical desk, tidy up your inbox. There is nothing worse than coming back into the office with over 100 e-mails to sort through.
Respond
Don’t leave communications hanging over a break. Respond now, while the conversation is still fresh in your mind and you recall the details. Return those phones calls, messages, and emails.
Meet those deadlines
What work is due before the break? Ensure you meet those deadlines before leaving the office. Otherwise, you will be worrying about them during your long weekend. And that is not fun…
Lastly, try not to stress. If you are organised and ready for the short week ahead, then pack up and enjoy the extra days off with family and friends. If you’re looking for some exciting new career opportunities, make sure you click through to our job section.
