The holidays started in earnest. Millions of Poles spend their dream holidays in resorts by the sea and in the mountains. Foreign destinations are also very popular among tourists, especially young people. The rest of the Poles are planning a vacation for the second half of July or August. After all, a well-chosen vacation is the key to a successful vacation.
Many people today go on vacation for the so-called. “speedy”, i.e. out of a professional rush, it falls into a whirlwind of packaging. This is accompanied by stress, time pressure and severe fatigue, which deprives the joy of the holiday. According to labor market experts, this is not an easy task. “A properly planned vacation can be the key to a successful vacation” they convince. And vice versa. Wrong decisions can ruin your entire vacation.
The Poles have their own strategies, and they differ significantly from each other. How to best plan your vacation - says Malgorzata Czerniecka, psychologist, well-being expert, founder of Human Power in an interview with Wprost.pl.
Dariusz Brzostek, Wprost.pl: - Holidays from Monday to Friday are the most popular type of holiday during the holidays. This is an interesting option, but there are downsides to this solution. Before we go on the vacation of our dreams, we must finish all the projects we have started, and return to the office routine upon our return. Most of us don’t like coming back to work on a Monday.
Małgorzata Czerniecka: The advantage of this solution is the total number of days off – in addition to the five days of the working week from Monday to Friday, we also have two days off, that is, nine days in total. If we can decide when we leave, let’s leave in such a situation from Sunday morning until next Saturday evening, so that we have Saturday to prepare for departure, and after returning on Sunday, unpack and settle into our home reality.
In this case, we can keep the holiday effect longer if we buy local food and bring it to work on Monday, show photos to colleagues, talk to others about their vacation plans. This approach will allow us to gently enter the mode of daily work.
Research shows that we are most efficient on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Monday is never the most efficient day of our work, whether we are returning from vacation or from the weekend. This means that we can assume that both we and our colleagues spend Mondays on some kind of startup - planning the work week, checking e-mail.
We do not need to immediately demand super-productivity from ourselves and respond to all emails and requests from colleagues. However, my observations show that many people experience a lot of stress when they return to work from vacation on Monday.
- More and more people decide to take a break in the middle of the week. They take vacation from Wednesday to Wednesday. And they are very proud of this decision.
During the burnout prevention trainings that I do, I strongly recommend taking a Wednesday-Wednesday vacation, or actually organizing a trip from Wednesday to Wednesday, extending the absence from work on Thursday and Friday after returning.
This approach works great, because we still have weekends before the holidays, during which we can calmly think about what we want to take, buy what we need for the trip - from flip-flops to sunscreen - wash clothes, look up information about the place. for us to go, think about what we want to visit, in other words, slowly switch to vacation mode.
The advantage of this approach is that we still have two working days - Monday and Tuesday - to close urgent cases that we need to deal with before the holiday and which usually multiply before the holiday.
Many people experience a lot of stress before a vacation that starts on Monday because they know that there are so many professional cases to close by Friday that they are afraid that they will not “make it on time”. This fear of leaving work is sometimes so great that they take office laptops, phones with them, and on the first days of vacation - on Monday and Tuesday - they still work.
This way of relaxing, when we work little and rest little, will not give us the same renewal effect as if we were completely disconnected from work. In the case of a trip that starts on Wednesday, we have a two-day additional work buffer and a weekend to prepare for the trip. This gives the effect of “breathing”, which we feel, even if there are a lot of tasks to be completed.
The undoubted advantage of resting from Wednesday to Wednesday is that we can take a day off on Thursday and Friday after returning from a trip. Thursday is for settling into the new reality, and Friday is for those stressed out before returning to work to check email and prioritize for the next week. This is the ideal model that gives us the most benefits, especially when we have a two-week trip ahead of us.
“Maybe we should look at it differently?” Many employees decide to take a vacation timed to fly an airplane. They don’t want to spend two days off preparing.
It is a matter of our choice how we will spend these two days. If we have closed professional affairs, we can devote these two days to a real transition to leisure mode - meet friends, go to the cinema, go to the botanical garden. We can also take our time to get together, check out how to have a good time and what kind of rest we need, and plan it.
Many people today go on vacation for the so-called. “speedy”, i.e. out of a professional rush, it falls into a whirlwind of packaging. This is accompanied by stress, time trouble and, getting into a car or plane, we feel so exhausted that we are not happy about the start of the vacation. The point is to break this pattern as often as possible and introduce elements of “slow life” so that the nervous system quickly adapts to the regeneration regime.
Let’s remember that even a sudden shift from action mode to rest mode can cause a lot of stress for our body. We need time to “transition” from high activity and arousal to full recovery mode. In addition, many people get sick during the holidays because their bodies are so mobilized that as soon as the stress level drops, they start to get sick. I hear a lot of these stories from the participants of my workshops, so slowing down before the holidays seems to make sense.
- You can also choose another option popular among employees. Take Friday off so you don’t get stuck in traffic before your vacation. And end your vacation on Monday so you don’t have to drive home on Sunday like thousands of drivers do.
When choosing different modes of relaxation, it is very important to observe yourself and decide what I need, what is best for my loved ones. Traveling at night comes with the risk of falling asleep at the wheel, but when parents have young children, it is very convenient for them to have their children asleep at the wheel. There are no clear answers here.
If we are afraid that we will get stuck in a traffic jam on Sunday, we will return on Monday or Saturday. If we can take a day off on Monday, let’s do it to calmly unpack things, shop for the next week, and prioritize. It’s important to take a moment to think about what approach will reduce our stress levels and really help us go on vacation calmly and also come back stress-free.
- How do you feel about the issue of holidays associated with vacation?
The best recipe for a holiday regeneration is a two-week vacation taken from Wednesday to Wednesday, which we are extending for two additional days - Thursday and Friday. It is very important to plan two-week breaks from work and alternate them with shorter weekend trips that last from Thursday to Sunday.
Also, let’s remember that, especially in our latitudes, it is also important to spend as much time as possible in the summer outdoors and recharge your batteries in contact with nature (take vitamin N). Then it will be easier for us to survive the busy end of the year for many companies.
Source: Wprost
I am George Brown, author at Daily News Hack. I mostly cover economy news and I have been doing this for quite some time now. I have a lot of experience in this field and I’m always looking for new opportunities to learn more.
