7 Effective Ways to Beat The Holiday Blues and Supercharge Your Career

Summer has seemed endless this year. Across Europe and North America its been hotter than the hinges on Hell's gates! But no matter, beacuse you have enjoyed the best holiday of your life. Full of sun, sea and endless fun. You feel more relaxed than ever before and all is great with the world. Then reality dawns.....because for most of us, today is the end of the holidays and its back to work tomorrow. If you are lucky you may have 4 more days left of holiday time. Either way, your mind has already drifted to work. The panic has already set in as you cant remember your login password. "Does it have a 7 in it somewhere? What was my childhood dog called?" But passwords are the least of your worries. You take a peak at your work email inbox and see the number of new emails. Its a number that does exist but usually created by a nobel prize winning mathmetician! "Did I finish that project?" - "Did that deal close while I was away?" You now have an image of what work will be like tomorrow and its not good.

But it really doesn't have to be this way. Anxiety about returning to work is just a sign that you relaxed during your holiday, which after all is one of the reasons for taking a holiday. But you still have that sinking feeling in your stomach and the most effective way of eradicating that is taking control and having a back to work action plan! So here are 7 tips to ensure a smooth return to work and supercharge your career!

1. Fail To Plan & You Plan To Fail! The easiest way to take control of your life is to set a plan of action and work your way through it. Our brains are wired to cope with small manageable tasks, often a number at a time, but as soon as the tasks build up beyond a certain amount the brain can't cope with the volume of information, goes into overload and shuts down. Its that feeling you have had in the past when you get back to work after a long holiday and sit staring at your computer screen totally overwhelmed, stressed and frozen to the spot. Setting out a plan gives you freedom. That feeling of freedom comes from a sense of control. Your brain now sees a series of small tasks set out over the next week that you know are all manageable. So get planning!
2. Fill Up Your Work Calendar! You have your plan of action now its time to put it into action! So start to fill up your work calendar. Book in hour long sessions for each of the tasks you have identified for the 1st week back. As an extra tip book up your first day back in the office and make sure you leave your out of office on for that day. It will buy you some precious extra time!
3. Spread The Workload! Just remember, that unless you are working for just yourself, you will be part of a team. Draw in other members of the team that can help you. Parts of the project that need additional input. Do you have to go to the 2 hour meeting you have been drafted into for your 1st day back or can you ask one of your colleagues to go in your place? Either way don't be afraid to delegate!
4. Book A Meeting With The Boss! The boss might be the last person you are thinking you want to sit down with as you come back from the holiday of a lifetime but in actual fact they are the priority person to see. You want to get an update on business while you have been away and run through your plans for the next week, project updates, client reviews. Be prepared with your meeting. Set an agenda and send an invite for day 2 or 3. Above all what it will do is make the boss look at your structured and full calendar and it will just remind them of what an exceptional worker you are!
5. Scan Your Inbox Today! I know you have a gazillion emails in there but I am not suggesting you run through each one and start answering them. This excercise is to scan through your inbox and have your hand hovering over the delete button! No answering emails, just dump the junk! You will be amazed at how many you will delete during this excercise that will not actually take that long and before you know it you will have eliminated anywhere between 20% and 50% of you inbox!
6. Brush Up Your CV/Resume! Taking time out from work will have inevitably got you thinking about your career, whether you love your job and whether its time for a change. Either way keeping an updated cv/resume is always a good idea. Firstly it reminds you of just what you have achieved in your current role and even why you do love what you do. Alternatively it gets you ready for planning your next career move over the coming months. The most important thing is that it just takes care of another area of your life that you wont have to worry about as you deal with the extra workload when you get back to the office.
7. Create A Daily Ritual! Your daily ritual for the last couple of weeks may well have been having a long lie in, sunbathing, sleeping, sangria and sun! Time for change! But a positive change. Get up early. Workout. Eat healthy. Get to work energised. Smash your goals. Read books. Listen to Podcasts. Whatever are your goals, write them down and plan the daily structure of your day. You want to be exceptional rather than average and this will path the way to excellence.

Follow these tips and your first week back into the office will be stress free and you will hit the ground running! And who knows...you may have even remebered your login password by now!

If you want to discuss your career plans in more detail then contact us USA +1 650 410 7007 or UK & Europe +44 203 911 7100 or at www.aluminiumcloud.com