Plan Now to Avoid a Post-Holiday Reentry Crash
The idea that you should come back from time off feeling bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and full of newfound motivation is… well, it’s a nice thought. But as Emily Underwood has explained in Forge, post-vacation burnout is a very real phenomenon. Even if you take time off and spend your holiday doing nothing but lounging around your living room, the return to the grind can be awful.
To avoid feeling crushed by your return to work in January, plan ahead: Before you sign off, create a first-week-back plan to remove as much of your mental burden as possible: “Write a detailed, not-too-ambitious to-do list for your first day or two back,” Underwood advises, “so that you can stumble through the first few days of reentry without straining your jet-lagged brain.” Most of us don’t have jet lag to worry about this year, but still, your brain will thank you.
