Do you feel like you hit a brick wall when it comes to getting back into the swing of things at work after a vacation, we often lose the level of momentum we had before we left. Listen in to how to get that momentum back faster.
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Welcome to the Breakthrough Mastermind Show. I'm your host, Jen Argue and I facilitate masterminds for women entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses to help others and create financial independence.
Right before you leave for vacation, you are doing all the things in your business to make sure everything runs smoothly when you're gone... systems check, content created and loaded check, team members know their role check, looks pretty good. So you go and have an awesome vacation. However, when you get back, you feel tired. And a little or a lot overwhelmed with trying to figure out where you left off and what's the priority.
I call it the post vacation back to work blues. Well, these are my favorite strategies to avoid the post- vacation back to work blues and how to get back into momentum in no time. First, I just want to say I get it. I used to get back from vacation and not feel motivated at all. My brain just didn't wanna kick into gear and I felt overwhelmed with a huge to-do list, not even knowing where to start.
And if you've been following me, you'll know. That I just got back from two and a half months of traveling all over the world. My husband is a professor and gets a sabbatical and we are pretty new at being empty nesters. So we thought let's go, let's go use this two and a half months and live in other places.
And I work remote so I can do the laptop lifestyle. So that's what we did. All of April, we were in Mexico. Then we spent a week in San Diego to celebrate our daughter graduating from college. Then we flew to Italy and just got back mid June. So, in all transparency I did work while I was gone on this amazing trip, but really it was me focusing on the 20%, which was a consolidated day, a week of one-on-one client appointments, mastermind meetings, and keeping a daily social presence in my Instagram stories.
Using the strategies I'm about to share with you transformed my post vacation back to work issues, making this last trip, easy peasy to return to work. So it was about three years ago. I knew I had to do something about this. Every time we came back from a vacation, I would just hit a wall. So I knew there was something I had to do.
What I did was I sat myself down and I self coached. I really thought it through because I saw this pattern happening and I wanted it to change and I knew it could change. So here's what I figured out. This was the biggest aha I had was that number one, I needed to make a plan for myself for when I got back before I left on vacation.
So I don't know if you're weird like me, but every month I make a list of things to focus on accomplishing. Then I have another list of things I want to accomplish after I finish those things. I don't want a whole big list because if I do that, that is just overwhelming. So typically for a month's worth, I will pick maybe four things to ultra focus on and make some real, you know, strides in.
And then the other things I will keep in the background because chances are, I just know myself. If I don't write down all the ideas I get, I will probably forget about them. And I love my ideas. I don't wanna forget about them. So I do this for myself every month and I even do it for myself every day.
Every day, I'll write down one or two things I really want to accomplish that day. And then I have a running list of other things that if I happen to finish it and I have more time, I will tend those things as long as they're serving my monthly list. So I decided that's what I was going to do with my post- vacation list.
About a week before we left, I made a list of the things that I wanted to focus on and do after vacation then... I have all week to refine it, to be the near perfect list for me to focus on when I get back. It can include the projects I'm working on, the projects that are always running in the background and the post vacation to-do list, like adjust my calendar and email settings, call certain people who I wanted to reconnect with upon return, things like that.
So that first strategy is to make a plan for yourself. To have ready when you get back from vacation. So you're not guessing and scrambling, where are you left off and what you wanna do? You are all set because you planned it before you left. The second strategy is... when I get back I give myself the first day off.
The first day back is for me, after all I want to love my life and my business. So I allow myself a day or maybe two to unpack, do laundry, get groceries, connect with family and friends. And you know, go to bed early [laugh] because typically I'm kind of tired from all the travel and all of the excitement that made up that vacation.
Because if I'm not normalized at home, it's hard for me to concentrate at work. So my second strategy is when I get back, I give myself the first day or two off to just resettle and get back everything the way it should be to hit the ground running. So my third strategy is... to pull out the list that I made before vacation and prioritize it.
I love, love, love, love, having a list, prepped for me to hit the ground running when I get back, I feel pampered for and loved by my pre vacation self. I pull it out along with my calendar and start to fill in when I'm going to do everything. It's important to me also to make it fun. So I make myself a fun drink, play some fun music that I loved.
I just want it to be a happy getting back to work time. Also, I can be extremely tired after a great vacation, even with those first day or two, um, days just for me and going to bed early and stuff. It get my energy just... um... feels a little low sometimes which challenges my attention span. So if I want extra support while I'm tackling things, I will pop onto focusmate.
Focusmate.com is this online virtual service where you have, uh, virtual co-working sessions with people, if you've never heard of it or tried it? I highly recommend it, there are thousands of people on it, like entrepreneurs, dissertation students from all around the world. And I sound like a commercial, but I am not an affiliate.
I am just a happy user, honestly at $5 a month, you can't go wrong. So I highly recommend that, of course, if you want the ultimate accountability, masterminds are the obvious choice. It's crazy to think that you can do entrepreneurship alone. Accountability 10x’s, the speed that gets things accomplished.
So masterminds, they keep you focused and on track, which not only help with the post- vacation back to work blues, but with the everyday blues that happen while running your business, a supportive group is life changing. I share this good news every week with you because I don't want anyone to go at it alone.
I have two groups, one for those working towards a 100K year, and that's the 100K Mastermind. And for those working towards their next financial milestone. Typically shooting for seven figures and that's the Breakthrough Mastermind. So hop on a call with me with the link below or in the show notes and see which is best for you.
Let me know your favorite strategy I shared and what strategies you use to get back going once you get back after vacation, I would love to hear it.
Again, if you are looking for more support, challenge and inspiration in running your business online, I would love to have you apply to my mastermind.
Check it out! @jenargue.com
