Right now it is 10:30 PM on a Friday night. I’m sitting up in bed barely keeping my eyes open and I’m writing an insurance blog. Why? Because I’m going on vacation tomorrow!
Like many of you, I never really feel that I am fully caught up but I always feel the most caught up just before vacation starts. We all enjoy being in vacation mode when we are away from the office, but have you ever thought about “pre-vacation” mode? In this mode, we are all business. We come in early, stay late, avoid distractions and generally work harder than our regular pace. And it isn’t all about simply completing tasks. We also make some really good decisions around prioritization and results. We look at everything that we have to do and decide whether or not it needs to get done before vacation based on what result it will produce and if it can wait.
We also push to get everything done that has to get done as if there is no tomorrow. On a typical Friday, we may push 9 or 10 things into the next week if we determine that there is no big difference between getting it done today or Monday. So, if we have 30 things to do, we may only do 19 or 20 on a normal Friday. This means we are already starting the next week behind. We also tend to push off tasks that we do not want to tackle which makes them snowball into a larger issue than they would’ve been if we would just tackle them. On a Friday before vacation when we are in pre-vacation mode and we get 27 to 28 things done, we are only postponing 2 or 3 items.
What would life be like if we were to stay in pre-vacation mode more often? I’m not suggesting that everyone can stay at this high level at all times. My point is that applying pre-vacation mode when we start to fall behind can help us get caught up. This would allow us to eliminate the “too busy” excuse because we would not feel like we were behind and would be less overwhelmed all of the time.
Let’s take a look at how applying pre-vacation mode when feeling overwhelmed and too busy can get us back on track. Let’s replay our typical Friday scenario from above but apply pre-vacation mode to our approach. First, we get there 15 minutes earlier than our normal time. Not only does this get us another 15 minutes, but it also means we are deep into work when others are arriving and going through the normal “how are you” and “getting coffee” time of the day. By coming in early and avoiding these distractions, you can double your production in the first hour.
Now you work straight through morning other than a quick (5 minute) morning break to grab a drink and a snack. During this time, you should tackle the larger items that you’ve been putting off that you know need to get done. By lunch time you should feel that you’ve been pretty productive and should have a pretty good idea of how to set up your afternoon to work through the rest of the items. Throughout the day you are eliminating distractions. This means no 15 minute talks about last night’s game, your favorite drama or reality show or this weekend’s plans. We may push a couple of items to Monday that we know can wait but we have to make sure this is only 1 or 2 items that truly can wait. Other than that we may stay 15-30 minutes late and really focus on finalizing the week strong.
Now when we come back on Monday morning, we only have those 1 or 2 things and we are more caught up. None of this process is meant to eliminate fun in the workplace. In fact, I strongly believe that taking this approach occasionally when we are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and “too busy” can actually improve the time that we spend at work and improves our job satisfaction.
It also allows us to take on many additional tasks that can improve performance and growth within the agency. Many times we have programs or systems that we know we should be implementing but feel so overwhelmed and busy that we don’t want to take on the additional effort to implement these items that we know will help us. Don’t delay this effort. Spend a day or two in pre-vacation mode and make your life easier!
