Five Ways to Beat the Post-Holiday Blues
8 Sep 2015
Picture the scene – you’ve spent the last couple of weeks relaxing on a beach with friends and family, enjoying nice food and drink without a care in the world. But it’s over in a flash and before you know it, you’re back at your desk the following Monday and other than the huge pile of unread emails, it’s as if you were never away.
It’s too easy to let the post-holiday blues kick in, so let’s take a look at four ways in which you can get back into the swing of things refreshed and revitalised.
Handover
Ensure that before going away, your team is up to speed on what you are currently working on so that your own customers don’t experience any downtime in your absence. Similarly when you are back, debrief with you colleagues to find out what’s been happening before your customers have the chance to catch you out. Don’t forget that all those customer interactions can easily be logged and tracked as activities in your CRM system.
Prioritise workloads and emails
Those hundreds of unread mails might seem daunting at first, but a lot of these can probably be deleted after a glance, and another stack will be simple questions that you can reply to within a couple of minutes. That leaves you with the more significant emails, which you can schedule and work through more methodically. It’s also worth bearing in mind that shorter emails are more likely to be read by the recipient and acted upon quicker.
Stimulate
Either the brain or the body. Learning means engaging new parts of the brain and this can help boost your mood, and taking part in physical activity releases endorphins which encourage feelings of happiness. Let’s face it, neither of these are bad for you!
Make every day a holiday
Although it may seem like there aren’t enough hours in the day, take time to do something for you. Whether it’s going out to go for a walk on your lunch break, going for a swim before work, or a bike ride at the end of the day, doing something different is good for you.
Book time off
Plan your next break so you have something to look forward to. This feeling of anticipation can often be a strong positive emotion in itself.
And if all of that isn’t quite enough, then just think – it’s less than four months until Christmas!
References/ Links:
Anticipation
www.psychologies.co.uk/self/life-lab-experiment-mind-2.htmlwww.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-happiness-project/201102/get-more-bang-your-happiness-buck-revel-in-anticipation
Learning
www.actionforhappiness.org/10-keys-to-happier-living/keep-learning-new-thingswww.humboldt-foundation.de/web/kosmos-cover-story-97-3.html
www.helpguide.org/articles/emotional-health/improving-emotional-health.htm
Endorphins
www.livestrong.com/article/197569-seratonin-endorphins-exercise/www.helpguide.org/articles/exercise-fitness/easy-ways-to-start-exercising.htm
My role is to build our Customer Success team and I work with our clients and prospects helping them get the most from their subscription – it is a fun challenging role as no two days are the same. When not in the office I’ll be either making a noise on my guitar or getting my trainers on for a run out in the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors or the Lake District.