As the summer vacation period is nearly over, I thought I could share a few tips on how the horrid return to work can be made slightly easier.

Nuke Your Email Inbox. Before you go either clean out your inbox (if you don’t use inbox-zero already) or just move all old messages to a new folder. This means everything coming in while you’re away is in one place.

Pre-Filter your Email. Before you start the mammoth scan of email (I had 2700 new mails on my return this year) sort emails by subject and sender and see if there are large groups of meaningless ones. Create a new filter to remove these out (surely this filter is missing anyway).

Passwords. A few times (embarrassingly) I have returned to work and completely forgotten a password to something. The time spent resetting these, or worse getting Helpdesk folks involved is infuriating. I now keep a secure password log as backup, and have also started using a slight ‘theme’ to elements of my passwords. This actually makes them stronger (multi-faceted) and at the same time easier to remember (changes are less random).

Ask for an Update. Rather than trying to decipher a long email thread which might also be missing meeting details and in-person conversations, for important topics just determine a key participant and ask them for a 10minute catch-up by phone. This saves you time and if you’re involved helps you get back to contributing quickly. Reciprocate and everyone is happy.

Record Your Ideas. Quite often while away I get (potentially) ‘good ideas’ about things related to work. Unfortunately as the tidal wave of work returns these ideas get relegated and often eventually forgotten. As such write them down, or better still put them into a document for sharing with others. Fresh ideas and thoughts are very valuable, and at the least provide some refreshing inspiration.