#TOW —HOW TO GET BACK ON TRACK AFTER A LONG ABSENCE?!

Organizing yourself at work after a long absence is something that demands high engagement on your part, as well as organizing skills.

In the period after a long absence, you need to organize ongoing things, but also finish or start working on things which were the reason you were absent. The question is how to organize yourself and what to do after a long absence from work:

1. Report — after any absence from work, write a report about where you’ve been (this refers to a business trip). The essence of business trip reports is to inform everyone about the results, but also so that you as well know what happened during that trip. You can sometimes use this report to remind yourself of things that happened.

2. Meetings — during your absence, a large number of meetings get rescheduled or postponed for when you come back. Bearing in mind that you have to include ongoing meetings, the week after a long absence may be fully occupied with meetings. You need to deal with that and prioritize. The most important meetings should be those with your closest associates so that they inform you about any novelties that might have happened when you were not at work.

3. Prioritizing — you need to make a list of priorities. During this period, the list should be smaller than the normal list because apart from the priority things, there are a lot of other things that might pop up. Bear in mind the private things you also need to do. You’ve been on a business trip, you haven’t been home in a while so, of course, you also have priorities at home you need to do.

4. Stay in touch — while you are away, make sure that you are constantly (within the limits of what’s possible) up to speed with what’s happening at work, at least relating to things concerning you directly. The evenings are the best time to do this and also use the available media (e-mail, social networks, etc.)

5. Planning — if you have the possibility and conditions (timely planned trip), try to delegate what you can and timely notify your associates that you will be absent for a certain period of time.

6. Be prepared — for the possible good or bad things that might happen in the period you will be gone. Changes may happen, especially if you are out of the office for a longer period. I am not saying that you need to accept them, but rather be prepared that something might have happened.

7. Focus — something that you will need during this period is focus on things you are doing. By being focused, you will much faster finish a task and reduce the to-do list.

8. Fun — find time for this as well. When I think of fun I don’t mean night clubs. The period after a long absence shouldn’t be considered as something stressful. Find time for informal socializing and conversations with your colleagues.

As you can see, coming back to work after a long absence can be traumatic. However, whether it will be traumatic or easy for you and the people around you will mostly depend on you.

I wish you success with your changes!