The Principle of the Short Week
Many years ago, I saw an article someone wrote about coming back to work and the plans in your first week. In this article, the author recommended that you never have a full week in your first week back from holiday. I suspect it is easy if you are in an environment where your business is flourishing and you have lots of cash in the bank. In principle, it makes a lot of sense to have a shorter week rather than a full week after a long holiday, but in practice, it is not that easy. As a business owner, you need to be there on the first day to make sure everybody has arrived and check that they had a great break. If it is possible, make your first week a three-to-four-day week so that you can ease into it without disrupting your well-earned December break.
Setting Strategic Boundaries
I always find that I have to be very deliberate about how I spend my first few days back at work. I have to set a few boundaries for myself and stick to the programme. I make sure I delete any emails that are older than three weeks old. Book your first three meetings with the intention to organize strategic subtraction, not addition. Make sure your schedule only has the most essential meetings in for the first couple of days. I think it is important to be realistic about your goals and set a 60–70% productivity target for your first week. That does, however, mean that you have to be 100% and more in your second week, but at least you will have had time to settle in.
Connecting with Staff and Minimising Distraction
I have the privilege of having a small business with very few people and therefore I can schedule one-to-one meetings with my staff at the beginning of the year. I really enjoy having these sessions as you never have time during the year to connect on a personal level. This is simply not possible in a business with thousands of people, but that always gives me such pleasure. When you come back from a long break, you are also easily distracted, and therefore you have to make sure that you turn off non-essential notifications on your phone and laptop.
Re-establishing the Morning Routine
One of the things I do dive into headfirst is my normal training routine. After lots of lazy mornings lying in bed with a coffee, I make sure that my alarm is set back to 5:15 am again. My morning routine helps me feel more energetic during the year, and it takes a few weeks for me to get back into training mode. I know every person is different, but luckily myself, Justine, and the kids enjoy our exercise on holiday. We do our training sessions later when we are on holiday, but we still train and make sure we stay fit. There is nothing worse for me than coming back from holiday and I haven’t looked after my body and my mind. All the best with your comeback week, and may it be a fruitful few days.
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If you would like to get in touch with me about my key note presentation, Debunking Motivation, please send an email to corne@cornekrige.com. Visit my website to review my speaker sheet for more info. I also share my story on my social media pages on Facebook and LinkedIn.