Your day to day
Coming back from holiday
Three weeks away and two hundred things waiting: where to start.
The first day back can be lost entirely to looking at things. What stops that is not trying to catch up on everything: almost nothing from three weeks ago needs your attention now.
The order on return
- 1
What stalled waiting for you
Filter for yours stuck since you left. It is usually little and the only urgent part.
- 2
What expired while you were away
That is what may have caused a problem with nobody watching.
- 3
What arrived and awaits review
Approve or reject in bulk, without opening them one by one.
- 4
And that is it
The rest resolved itself or someone handled it. Reviewing it is curiosity, not work.
Important
What causes most trouble from an absence is not what piled up: it is what expired with nobody looking. Insurance that lapsed two weeks ago has been a problem for two weeks, and appears in no inbox.
Twenty minutes before leaving
Watch out
Reassigning is not dumping work on a colleague: it is so the third party waiting does not discover their contact is on holiday three weeks after asking.
Worth knowing
If forty things are waiting specifically for you on your return, the problem is not the holiday: it is that everything passes through one person, and that shows in January too.
›Can I set an auto-reply?
For email yes; third parties waiting on documents appreciate knowing who to write to.
›What if nobody can cover for me?
Then at least reassign what expires: that is what cannot wait.
›Does the third party know the owner changed?
They see who they deal with; the history is not reset.
A real case
The situation
Someone returns from three weeks away and spends the first day reviewing everything that happened.
What you do
- Filters only their own stalled and expired items
- Approves the review queue in bulk
What you get
Closes the urgent part in an hour and finds two expiries nobody had seen for weeks.
The situation
You come back from three weeks off to four hundred emails and eleven files that moved.
What you do
- Checks first what is waiting on your side
- Looks separately at what has been stalled since before you left
- Leaves the inbox until after you know where you stand
What you get
The return starts from a short list rather than from an inbox.
The situation
Nobody knows what happened to the files while you were away.
What you do
- Checks each one's history
What you get
You pick up knowing what moved.
The situation
The stand-in did things and there is no record of what they decided.
What you do
- Checks the recorded decisions
What you get
Continuity does not depend on a conversation.
The situation
You return and some expiries have passed.
What you do
- Checks what expired during the absence
What you get
The urgent is tackled first.
The situation
Suppliers were not told before you left.
What you do
- Redirects notices to the stand-in before leaving
What you get
Nobody outside waits three weeks.
This article answers
- catching up after holiday
- what do i check first on my return
- backlog after an absence
- handing over before holiday