Back with a bump...

If you're feeling overwhelmed on your return from some time off, you're not alone. Here's what you can do about it.

Aug 30, 2024

Do you ever feel like taking time away from your job requires so much extra work, both before you go and when you come back, that sometimes you wonder if it was worth it? Or that the glorious feeling of relaxation you had (if you actually managed to achieve that and didn’t worry about work whilst away…) disappears in seconds once you open your overflowing inbox and confront the work that has been piling up while you were away? If so, you’re far from alone.

I’ve just come back from a wonderful week away with friends (and their two beautiful Vizslas) in the Lake District. It was some much needed downtime after a very intense few months leading up to the publication of my book, and it involved plenty of hiking up mountains whilst being blown sideways, as well as cake, ice cream, and a few pints in the local pub.

Yet as is so often the case after time away, I came back to work this week with a bit of a bump. I’ve struggled to get back into a routine, and have felt overwhelmed by the amount of things I need to do.

What causes overwhelm?

As is often the case it is a mixture of the reality of the situation and our perceptions and beliefs about that situation.

Let me illustrate this with a simple example.

During your time off the chances are you received some emails, even though plenty of people knew you were away and your out-of-office was on.

That part is factual: you received some emails.

Where it gets tricky is what our brain does with that fact. Consider:

What did you decide you had to do with those emails on your return?
How fast did you feel you had to deal with them?
What pressure did you put on yourself to “catch up”?
How many times did you apologise for your delayed response?
Did you delegate some tasks or did you decide that you had to deal with it all yourself?
Did you judge yourself for being behind or disorganised or for not being on top of things?

Whether or not these specific questions apply to you, the point is that you almost certainly did add some meaning, and more often than not it is the meaning rather than the factual reality which is making us feel overwhelmed.

What can I do about this?

Given that the feeling of overwhelm starts with our mindset, that’s also where we must begin to address it.

One, accept the reality of the situation. Yes, you will need some time to get back on top of things. Yes, that is normal. No it doesn’t have to all be done today (unless you have the most unreasonable boss…which is a whole separate conversation).

Two, you aren’t “behind”. That’s a perspective that will make you feel bad, without making any difference to what needs to be done. On a related note, you don’t need to apologise for taking a holiday, or indeed any other kind of needed time off whether for you or for a loved one.

Three, hold (or if needed set) your boundaries. Doing a huge number of additional hours of work on your return rather defeats the point of a holiday. Just saying… Figure out what can wait a while, even if that slightly inconveniences someone else. They will survive, and you will have healthier boundaries in future if you don’t set others up to have unrealistic expectations of you.

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to get practical.

I was stressing earlier this week about everything I needed to do, so as a first step I simply wrote it all down. Every single thing I could think of. (In case it makes you feel better I also avoided doing that for a day as I thought I would find it overwhelming! Yes. I know. Sigh.).

Once it was out of my brain and on a piece of paper it immediately felt more manageable. Rather than stewing in my head as an almost unlimited set of tasks, all of which needed doing yesterday, the list became finite.

I could also start to make a plan. I worked out what was highest priority and what could wait. I determined what to do now, what to schedule in, what I could delegate and what I could simply delete.

This approach is based on the Eisenhower Matrix, a task management tool that helps you organise and prioritise tasks by urgency and importance. It is something I go back to time and time again.

Try it for yourself, list out everything in your brain that you need to get done that you can think of, then allocate it into one of the four quadrants. Focus on the top two boxes and make a plan for the next few weeks. Note that if everything ends up in the “Do” box you may want to give it another go around…

For extra bonus points, try this ahead of your next holiday. The more you can get others to delete or get done (in other words delegate) while you’re away the less you will come back to.

Sweating the small stuff

This week: Prioritising

Our difficulty with (or avoidance of) prioritising is one of the biggest things that gets in the way of us having the time we need to spend with our team. Be ruthless.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to ask yourself:

Does this have to be done by me?
Does this have to be done now?

The more you can spend your time on the things only you can do, and that are really important, the better you and your team will function.

What I’m reading…

I’m going to start an extra set of posts here on Substack, once or twice a month, about what I’m reading. I often get asked this, and I often recommend books and resources to my clients, so I’m going to experiment with sharing my suggestions a bit more widely. Let me know what you think, or if you have any requests.

It won’t be as formal as a book review, but more me sharing what I took from the book that made me think or act differently, and why I would recommend it. Think of it more as a chat with a friend about why they enjoyed a book.

I’ll set this up as a separate section on Substack, so while you will receive these emails initially, if at any time you want to opt out you can do so while still receiving these fortnightly, extended emails.

That’s all for this time. If you have any tips or questions on how to deal with post-holiday (or indeed any other kind of) overwhelm, add a comment and start the conversation here:

Small Stuff Big Impact by Sarah Langslow

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