How to clock off for the holidays

1. Go through your messages. Reply to the big emails.
2. Realise the big emails require planner cross-checks and WhatsApp messages. Send the messages.
3. Send the emails.
4. Clear your inbox of anything of medium importance.
5. Realise that the low importance emails never mattered and delete them. Resolve to do this more after the holiday.
6. Turn on your out-of-office automatic email replies on however many inboxes you monitor. Include useful links in the accounts to which people will have emailed questions because they actively chose not to Google their question, and thought instead that emailing you on Christmas Eve was a smarter, faster and more empathic option.
7. Consult your to-do list. If it includes basic accounting, updating your planner for the new year to reduce first day back stress and/or more messages, make a cup of tea.
8. Find new emails in your inbox. Everyone you work with is doing step one. Don’t reply, because your out of office is activated and you are, officially, No Longer Available. Do you even exist? Possibly not.
9. Check that anything you needed to schedule over the break has been scheduled. (Are you really going to Instagram a sunrise photo for the solstice on the day you observe it? Probably, yeah. If you don’t, it’s okay to spend 10 days with no Instagram updates, even if you are publishing a book and require Content. Most people who follow your work will be very drunk very soon, and won’t be able to read captions anyway.)
10. Finish up any last dregs that will annoy you after the break if they’re still hanging around waiting to be done.
11. There was something Big you wanted to get done before the break. There always is. It can wait until after the break. It’s waited three months or three weeks and it can wait ten more days. If you come back rested, you might actually get it done more efficiently after your break.
12. Remember you wanted to write a blog post before the break, but the one you have drafted might work better in the new year and you’ve lost interest anyway.
13. Write this blog post.
14. Fuck off.

Have a lovely and safe whatever-you’re-celebrating and I will see you in 2024!

Look after yourselves,
Francesca

---

Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to my latest book, Rotting Trees, plus chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi for one-off support. If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buy my first book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailers and as a paperback from Amazon. (That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos…) If you enjoy my book recommendations, you can find my Bookshop.org page here.

You can find me on social media (reluctantly), via Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. I also have a montly-ish newsletter and you can find my work on GoodReads and StoryGraph.