My secret for easing out of vacation mode - WITHOUT jumping straight back into work.

Do you tend to push yourself to get right back into work post family vacation or Christmas getaway or big Thanksgiving road trip? 

Are you putting that kind of pressure on yourself to be “all in” on client support, project deliverables, daily social media content, getting straight back into batching, etcetera - when deep down you’re still tired from this “out of my routine” trip mode, and what you really need is a break?

(Worse, have you ever scolded yourself for “failing” your latest habit streak ‘cause you took this trip/week off and it would have been way too much hassle to keep going on your running or sunrise meditation or new herbal tea habit?)

This is what my client came to me with, and here’s how we reframed it for her.

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

Love your daily life as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/ 

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Transcript

This is the Unbusy Mom, and today we’re talking about my secret for easing out of vacation mode - WITHOUT jumping straight back into work.

Do you tend to push yourself to get RIGHT back into work post family vacation or Christmas getaway or big Thanksgiving road trip? 

Are you putting that kind of pressure on yourself to be “all in” on client support, project deliverables, daily social media content, getting straight back into batching, etcetera - when deep down YOU’RE still tired from this “out of my routine” trip mode, and what you REALLY need is a break?

(Worse, have you ever scolded yourself for “failing” your latest habit streak ‘cause you took this trip/week off and it would have been WAY too much hassle to keep going on your running or sunrise meditation or new herbal tea habit?)

This is what my client came to me with, and here’s how we reframed it for her.

Look. When you’ve just taken yourself COMPLETELY out of your normal workday routine, plus you’ve got all the kids and catch-up laundry and restocking fridge stuff to boot, of COURSE you’re not super ready to dive back into work!

It’s ‘cause you haven’t had the PREP time (or the off time!) that you normally would’ve coming off an ordinary weekend at home like you usually do. 

Instead, you were off traveling or putting away all the airplane size toiletries or driving off to fetch milk for today’s cereal and coffee - aka, in full on trip recovery mode - which is a FAR cry from “I hit my regular metrics here at home last week, felt pretty good, and now got to recharge Saturday and Sunday.”

You see what I mean?

So when you put all this pressure on yourself of “I’m technically back in office, I’m right here at home for crying out loud, and I TOLD my clients I’d only be out one week so I’d better deliver,” you’re being completely unrealistic, aka non-matching, of what your ENERGY is vs. what your strict calendar AVAILABILITY to do the work looks to be.

And if you’re throwing “failed my new habit” shade on top of THAT? Girl, no wonder you’re feeling the “don’t want to go back to work” blues! You just told yourself that you’re a slacker, you didn’t meet those movement or eating goals, and now you need to jump right back in and make up for lost time - yay??

I don’t think so.

And here’s how we softened into this for my client. She goes on trips pretty regularly - one of the bonuses of work-from-home life, am I right? And also has a lot of self-development projects going on at one time.

You probably do, too - we’re talking the “try adding daily fermented foods to my diet, log my 10,000 steps, listen to a morning and evening meditation from this app, spend 30 minutes catching up on class homework from this latest online course I’m taking, oh and get all the family food prepping in. ‘Cause I’m not doing all THAT on one day. (Or I’d be in the kitchen from sun up to sun down!)

So obviously these goals translated into a lot of personal metric habits for her that she was checking off each and every day (‘cause we’d just finished setting up the schedule that let her fit all of those in).

But then what was she going to do the FIRST week she got back from one of those week-long trips? She’d given herself a free pass on the fermented and food prepping and all that while she was physically out of her house, but now she was TECHNICALLY back (although really tired and not in the rhythm of doing those daily habits anymore) - should I be gritting my teeth and plunging back in?

That’s what her productivity question to me boiled down to. Even though I don’t want to, should I make myself, ‘cause that’s the “right” thing to do.

And you know what I told her? Nope. 

• No, don’t force yourself. 
• No, go sleep in and do some gentle stretching if you feel like it instead of making yourself hit 10k steps.
• No, just buy the ingredients for your fermented recipes this week and don’t make yourself add them straight back in.
• No, just scrap the food prepping goals this week (because filling the fridge with your home fermented recipes totally counts).
• No, just catch up on replays for all your missed classes and make NOTES of whatever homework sounds top of mind interesting for you to do - and don’t put it on your to-do list for the very next day.

Just EASE into all of that. Let yourself have a true recovery/flex blend week.

Because it’s OKAY to take an extra week off from your habits.

They’re priorities to you; you won’t skip. 

But you need to be gracious with yourself right now - far more gentle than you’re being - and give yourself that extra “get back in the groove” week where you’re just PRACTICING getting back into your own personal rhythms. 

Okay?

• Just do 4,000 steps. 
• Just listen to ONE replay. 
• Just read all the client messages that came through while you’re gone and transfer them to your to-do list. 
• Just plan your work time blocks for NEXT week on those project deliverables.
• Just message your team that you’re back and wading through Slack and do they have anything top of mind for you to go through first.

Just give yourself the grace to take baby steps. Okay?

What we’re doing here is actually getting you that recharge time you need post trip – by leaning on scheduling. 

We’re SCHEDULING a break from all the normal habits you normally do, just so you don’t feel like you’re your own taskmaster and the ONLY reason to ever get a break is because you were literally out of town, away from your own kitchen.

Not happening. YOU get to put “light weeks” on the calendar AHEAD of when you know you need them, too – not just slide into them by shoving off everything on your to-do list and then feeling guilty about it – because that’s the kind of PREEMPTIVE selfcare-by-scheduling I teach you in my program.

Oh, and this even works for your personal life, too. Like when you’re super tired for some reason yet you still want to hit your “did something with the kids today” check box.

Here’s what my husband did last time he came home late and tired from a work trip with no energy for read alouds with the kids (his favorite go-to that our 5-year-old can’t get enough of).

He turned on music for the kids to listen to (always a treat when THEY get to pick), ate supper to restore his energy, and after supper felt he had enough bandwidth to watch Road Runner with the kids. 

That’s a *great* example of adapting your priorities to your energy level, not your energy level to your priorities. (Aka, you don’t force yourself to perform beyond your capabilities! That’s a sure recipe for blow-ups.) 

Side note: the only time you *don’t* want to do this is if the daily “read books before bed” is something you’re now too tired to do *every* night. *That’s* when systemic change needs to happen for you in your schedule, or mindset, or list of tasks for the day - ‘cause you’re becoming overloaded and treating it as “just this once I’ll skip” when it’s normal now. 

See the difference?

So see where YOU can put “baby steps to client tasks” or “longer runway for web design reentry” on your work-from-home schedule - it’ll make coming home from longer trips WAY easier for you. 

And that’s what we’re all about.