Five ways to beat the holiday hangover and jumpstart 2019

Let’s face it. Nobody is thrilled about coming back to work after the holiday season or after a vacation. Your schedule is bound to be all over the place, and coming back to your official inbox can be daunting. A lot of people, me included, have a hard time shaking off the ‘holiday hangover’ and getting back into the work zone.

If you’re having trouble switching from holiday mode to work mode, here are some simple ways to help smoothen the transition, and start the year off on a high.

Ease your way back in

Pace yourself, spend some time going through your inbox, and catch up on everything that happened while you were out of office. This way, when you actually get behind your desk again, you will be up to speed and on the same page as the rest of your team.

Make a plan

Alright, we know there’s no escaping the wrath of the overflowing inbox. Take a breath. Prioritize your inbox in terms of tasks that need your immediate attention, and tasks that have some breathing time and can be addressed at leisure. Create multiple to-do lists; one for the day, week, and month. By having a list for each stage, you will be able to focus on what needs to be done immediately, but also have visibility into what you can expect for a certain period of time.

Pro-tip: Group your tasks into batches based on the nature of the work. Before you know it, you’ll get into a rhythm, and find that completing tasks of a similar nature speeds up the process.

Set multiple reminders  

Multi-tasking is the only way to get up-to-speed after a long break. However, juggling multiple tasks is also the easiest way to lose track of some of the things from your mammoth list, and you’ll find that one or two will inevitably slip through the cracks. To avoid this, set up timely reminders for yourself which will ensure that you are duly reminded of your tasks according to deadlines and priority. You will not have to be reminded by others and you won’t miss deadlines either. Win-win!

Set up a daily ‘DND’ time

Block your calendar for an hour daily. By blocking out this time, you indicate to your colleagues that you are busy and unavailable for that specified time slot. Use this time, to tackle the most important/challenging tasks on your list and get it out of the way.

Pro-Tip: Either set up this ‘do not disturb’ hour first thing in the morning or at the end of your day, so it doesn’t disrupt the flow of your workday.

Use all the tools available to you

Be sure to use all the resources available to you – be it integrations, add-ons or others.  There are a number of apps that can help you manage your time, increase your productivity and simplify tasks.

Here at Freshworks, we have the Freshworks Marketplace – a unified marketplace which has a number of apps and integrations that will supercharge your Freshworks products. The apps are designed to increase the value our users get from our products.

From apps that can increase agent productivity and help track issues, to bots that can significantly reduce the amount of work you put into resolving a ticket, there are a wide variety of apps in the marketplace that can help you kick the holiday blues . The Freshworks Marketplace currently supports apps for Freshdesk, Freshservice, and Freshsales.

There you have it, folks! A few tips and tricks to help you push through the initial difficult days that everyone faces after a long holiday. We trust that they will help kickstart your new year with renewed vigor! Here’s wishing you a successful and productive year ahead.