I love being lazy.
At least I used to. Holidays, not vacations mind you but short one or two-day holidays, were opportunities to do nothing and to take delight in just being. I could linger in bed sometimes up to 11 in the morning sleeping, reading, or watching TV. Once I discovered online games I could stay in my PJ’s till 3 or 4 in the afternoon sitting in front of my desktop involved in some online adventure.
But not anymore. Holidays now mean extra work on the day back or work during the holiday to keep things from piling up on the day I return. Even though I’m out of the office, my overseas customers aren’t. Even my clients in the US expect to have replies to their queries and to pick up the threads of a deal from before the holiday immediately.
How was I able to ignore this for so long? One answer is that I didn’t use to have so many responsibilities. I’ve inherited or created responsibilities over the years and I know from experience how work piles up if I just let these sit till I’m back in the office.
My method of dealing with this backlog has changed over time. I used to do some “pre-work” and address some issues before I left the office before the holiday. A sort of pre-emptive strike. But half the time the situation would change over the weekend and I just created more work for myself.
What I’ve switched to now is to doing little bits of work over the holiday. I telecommute so my office is with me at home. Since I’m always up before dawn I do some light office work. I chase down old leads and contacts with emails, I update sales spreadsheets, I clean out directories and old files. Things that need doing but aren’t heavy-duty work. I also peruse the email traffic that’s come in during the holiday so I don’t get any nasty surprises when “I return”.
I swear I’m not a workaholic. If anything this is my way of not having to work harder. I think it’s a great way to keep the work load down and to use time that I might normally waste.
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