We've all felt the dread of returning to work after a long weekend. It's nearly a truism that the pleasure one gets from a long weekend is more than offset by the mountain of work awaiting us upon our return. But there is a trick that can assuage at least some of the return-to-work pain.
First, it's important to understand that a good bit of the return-to-work pain stems from having a to-do list that looks like it grew tenfold during our day off. Based on the tens of thousands who have taken Leadership IQ's online quiz "How Do Your Time Management Skills Stack Up?" we know that more than two-thirds of people feel like they don't have enough time to do everything they want to do. And a good dose of that comes from the majority of people having a lengthy to-do list rather than a short list of essential priorities.
Perhaps most striking is that people who have a short list of essential priorities are nearly 50% more likely to leave work feeling like "today was a really successful day" than those with lengthy to-do lists.
Second, it's critical to know that about 71% of people report frequent interruptions when they're working. And even more striking is that the people who can block out interruptions are about 52% more likely to end their workday feeling like "today was a really successful day.”
While interruptions are intuitively disruptive, there's actually neurological evidence for the distress they cause. In one study, University of Michigan researchers found that people lost significant time when they switched from one task to another. And the more complicated the tasks, the more time was lost. So it's no surprise that the more people get interrupted, the less productive they become, and that lost productivity translates into an eroded sense of well-being.
Given the evidence that having a shorter list of priorities and preventing interruptions can drive both better productivity and well-being, what's the ideal action plan? For starters, whatever day you come back to the office, block out the first few hours of that day. Mark them off on your calendar, avoid meetings, and generally do whatever you can do to avoid getting interrupted by non-stop requests from others.
Then, during those hours that you've blocked off, pick a few (ideally one, two or three) top priorities and focus intensely on completing those tasks or projects. Completing those top priorities will drastically increase your sense of accomplishment and feelings of productivity. It's critical to have clearly defined tasks with start and end points; otherwise, you're likely to feel like you're getting swept away in a tidal wave of to-dos.
Now, the final piece of this plan is to map out the morning of your return-to-work at the end of the day before you start the long weekend. For example, if you're taking Monday off, then map out what your Tuesday morning will look like on Friday afternoon before you start your long weekend.
Most people are so eager to start the long weekend that they forget how awful their first day back is going to feel. But truly, taking 15-minutes on Friday to plan the morning of the first day back will pay dividends. Not only will that first day back be far less painful, but it will prevent the feelings of dread that inevitably creep in the night before the first day back. You're much less likely to dread the next morning when you've developed a crystal-clear plan for how that morning will proceed.
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