Peace of Mind Organizing

Building in re-entry time after a trip

29 September 2014

I was out of town for five days in mid-September. I’ve been back a week and I still don’t have my mojo back.

Travel can wreak havoc on habits and routines. I was a step ahead of the game in that at least I have routines to come back to. But on this trip, I did not build in time to get back into the swing of things. I led an organizing team the morning after I returned (about 12 hours after I got back to St. Louis). The day after that was my birthday and I was determined not to spend my special day working. So I lost that day for catch up.

I actually had a day and a half at my desk last week, which, these days, is quite a bit. Yet, the lowest my email inbox has been is 15. (I strive for inbox zero every weekday.) My desktop houses a perpetual pile. And I’ve been doing a lousy track of planning my tasks for the day. In short, the three components of my evening routine, the ones that keep me on my game, have fallen by the wayside. And, as you may have noticed, I didn’t manage to blog last week!

On Sunday, I had some time to catch up on everything and I hope to be able to get back to my evening weekday routine and it keep it together this week.

I think the way around this in the future is to plan re-entry time. As an entrepreneur, I’m in charge of my schedule. I really like to accommodate clients’ needs, but I also have to bear in mind my need to spend time working on business and staying on top of things.

I’m going to have the chance to practice this in October when I have a whole lot of travel, all of it enjoyable, planned. I vow right now to build in time for re-entry so that I am not too stressed between trips.

Tagged with: clean desk, email, habits, routines, self-care, task list, travel

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