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10 Ways to Achieve Post Vacation Harmony

With sum­mer in full force, many are return­ing from their sum­mer hol­i­day break or plan­ning their next excit­ing get­away. Whether you’re just now pur­chas­ing your tick­ets or if you’re still enjoy­ing the glow of your Caribbean tan, you can ben­e­fit from our tips and tricks for avoid­ing post vaca­tion over­whelm.

Did you enjoy a week in Orlan­do with the fam­i­ly, spend a long week­end in Vegas with your girl­friends, or hike the Inca Trail in Peru? Regard­less of the venue, these pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tips can help you deal with the stress, over­whelm, and dread that goes hand-in-hand with com­ing back to real­i­ty.

Make sure your projects are under control before you embark on your journey

Be proac­tive, rather than reac­tive, to reduce the pain and dread of return­ing to work or home. The key is prepa­ra­tion. Make sure your projects and tasks are under con­trol before your depar­ture. At the office, take care of your high pri­or­i­ty tasks, com­mu­ni­cate your sta­tus to your man­ag­er and co-work­ers, and del­e­gate any tasks that require com­ple­tion before your return. If you’re man­ag­ing a house­hold, use project man­age­ment tech­niques from the experts. Break large projects such as laun­dry and shop­ping into man­age­able tasks. Cre­ate shop­ping lists, check­lists, or to-do lists.

Clean and organize your house before your departure

Noth­ing makes you feel more post vaca­tion stress than return­ing to a dirty and dis­or­ga­nized house. Sched­ule time before your depar­ture to clean and orga­nize. Mow the lawn, if nec­es­sary. Out­source, if you have the bud­get. Hir­ing a clean­ing ser­vice or lawn ser­vice will free up your time for pack­ing and mak­ing plans, such as pet care, vaca­tion itin­er­aries, and reser­va­tions.

Create out-of-office or “unavailable” messages

Cre­ate out-of-office mes­sages for both pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al voice­mail and email. It’s basic office eti­quette to ensure oth­ers are aware you’re not avail­able, and co-work­ers tend to be self suf­fi­cient when they under­stand you’re away. For per­son­al email and voice­mail, cre­ate a mes­sage to let friends and fam­i­ly know that you won’t be answer­ing email or return­ing calls for an extend­ed peri­od of time to avoid a flood of mes­sages upon return.

Allow yourself time to recover

Sched­ule an extra day of vaca­tion to unwind and pre­pare at home before return­ing to work or school. Don’t feel oblig­at­ed to fin­ish all projects, com­plete all tasks, and return all phone calls and email mes­sages the first day you return. It’s espe­cial­ly impor­tant to sched­ule extra time if you’ve trav­eled across time zones and you’re suf­fer­ing from jet­lag.

Unpack and sort laundry

Upon return, unpack your bags, and sort your laun­dry imme­di­ate­ly into piles or bas­kets. This is where your fam­i­ly can help. Ask chil­dren, spous­es, or part­ners to assist with sort­ing, fold­ing, and putting away laun­dry.

Attack your email inbox

Have you ever returned from vaca­tion to an inbox full of hun­dreds or even thou­sands of email mes­sages? If you haven’t start­ed using Mer­lin Mann’s 43 fold­ers tech­niques for email (Inbox Zero) this is a good time to start. It pro­vides great tips to get your inbox to zero quick­ly and effi­cient­ly.

Quick email tips include:

  • Set fil­ters on email before­hand. For exam­ple, sort email from your man­ag­er into one fold­er so you can start there upon return. Sort noisy, repet­i­tive email into anoth­er fold­er that has a low­er pri­or­i­ty. You can address those items lat­er.
  • Respond to email imme­di­ate­ly. Answer email that you can imme­di­ate­ly, and remem­ber it’s not nec­es­sary to write a long response.
  • Cre­ate lists. Cre­ate a to-do list or task for any­thing that requires an action, then don’t be afraid to archive or delete the asso­ci­at­ed email.

Attack your “snail mail”

Sort the items from your mail­box into the fol­low­ing groups:

  • Coupons. Place any handy coupons or gift cards into one fold­er.
  • To do. Place any mail that requires a task into one fold­er.
  • To file. Place any mail that requires scan­ning or fil­ing into one fold­er.
  • To pay. Place any bills that need to be paid online or by mail in one fold­er.
  • To read. Place cat­a­logs, news­pa­pers, and mag­a­zines that you wish to read lat­er in this pile or fold­er.

Every­thing else goes into the recy­cle bin.

Stock the refrigerator and cupboards

After return­ing from a vaca­tion, the refrig­er­a­tor and cup­boards might be bare. Once again, prepa­ra­tion is key. Make sure you have frozen meals stocked before­hand so you have some­thing to eat as soon as you arrive home. Next, cre­ate a shop­ping list and sched­ule time to pur­chase gro­ceries. After eat­ing at restau­rants for an extend­ed peri­od of time, your bud­get might be low and your waist­line might be expand­ing. Home-cooked meals will help solve both issues.

Delegate your tasks

You can’t do it all your­self. Make sure your fam­i­ly pitch­es in, and avoid the temp­ta­tion to redo their work. Make tasks clear and age appro­pri­ate. Set real­is­tic dead­lines. Give younger chil­dren sin­gle tasks and set a timer for com­ple­tion. Con­sid­er using a reward sys­tem for com­plet­ed tasks.

Find tools to help

There are sev­er­al tools that can help you man­age these items to achieve har­mo­ny. Choose a tool that works for you. LightAr­row has cre­at­ed the app, Life­Topix, to help man­age most of these items. Life­Topix is a cal­en­dar based pro­duc­tiv­i­ty app for per­son­al orga­ni­za­tion and time man­age­ment avail­able on the iPad and iPhone. It helps you man­age your to-do lists (check­lists), projects & tasks, notes, files, gro­cery shop­ping lists, ser­vice providers (such as pet care, clean­ing ser­vices, or lawn main­te­nance), trav­el, and much more. You can find Life­Topix at the App Store.