---
id: KB-TD-008
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/day-to-day/coming-back-from-holiday
idioma: en
categoria: trabajo-diario
subcategoria: tareas
audiencia: usuario
nivel: basico
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-TD-001, KB-TD-006]
citadoPor: [KB-TD-020]
---

# Coming back from holiday

_Three weeks away and two hundred things waiting: where to start._

**Responde a:** catching up after holiday · what do i check first on my return · backlog after an absence · handing over before holiday

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

**En corto**

- Reassign whatever can move in those weeks.
- Check what expires while you are away and resolve it first.
- And say who decides what you would decide.

> [!WARNING]
> 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.

> [!NOTE]
> 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.

## Ejemplos

**Someone returns from three weeks away and spends the first day reviewing everything that happened.**

- Filters only their own stalled and expired items
- Approves the review queue in bulk

→ Closes the urgent part in an hour and finds two expiries nobody had seen for weeks.

**You come back from three weeks off to four hundred emails and eleven files that moved.**

- 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

→ The return starts from a short list rather than from an inbox.

**Nobody knows what happened to the files while you were away.**

- Checks each one's history

→ You pick up knowing what moved.

**The stand-in did things and there is no record of what they decided.**

- Checks the recorded decisions

→ Continuity does not depend on a conversation.

**You return and some expiries have passed.**

- Checks what expired during the absence

→ The urgent is tackled first.

**Suppliers were not told before you left.**

- Redirects notices to the stand-in before leaving

→ Nobody outside waits three weeks.