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That first morning back from holiday doesn’t have to be stressful. To avoid being hit with a tidal wave of email threads and ‘quick questions’, setting time aside before you leave can help create a calmer restart.
These things aren’t just inconvenient: edays’ latest State of Absence data shows a 29% year-on-year rise in absences linked to stress and anxiety in 2024, alongside a recorded 7.6% drop in annual leave days taken between 2022 and 2023.
These are both worrying signals that poor re-entry habits can fuel bigger problems later. That’s why we’re outlining our top five rules for stopping the email avalanche in its path.
Rule 1: Block a ‘catch-up window’ on your first morning back
When you’re first back, be sure to block out a 90-120-minute ‘catch-up’ window: scan your inbox end-to-end, sort threads into what truly blocks other people and what can wait. Creating a small buffer like this may help you pace the inevitable volume.
Research from Microsoft shows that the average worker receives around 117 emails a day, most of which are skimmed in under a minute, which makes triage especially essential.
Luckily, software from edays can track employee leave, absence and sickness, all while automating absence approval.
When leave is approved, you can auto-add a ‘Return: inbox catch-up’ calendar hold, so colleagues can’t grab that slot the moment your status flips back to available.
Rule 2: Make your out-of-office do triage for you
Your out-of-office can double as a mini triage desk!
Don’t just say when you’re back: set a realistic reply date, so expectations match reality. A simple line like ‘Back on Tuesday, replying by Thursday’ buys you space to prioritise properly rather than fire off rushed, low-value replies.
Benchmarks show that typical actual response times to emails sit at roughly 11 hours 42 minutes – proof that same-day answers aren’t the norm and that signalling a reply-by date is reasonable. You can also make the message do the routing.
Name one clear ‘while I’m away’ contact, direct genuinely urgent issues to them. If you’re using absence management software, pull your return date and deputy straight from the approved leave, so the OOO is always accurate.
Rule 3: Triage by thread and sender, not chronologically
Open your inbox and resist the instinct to work from the oldest message up. Sort by conversation or by sender, skim the latest message in each active thread, and archive anything that’s clearly concluded while you were away.
A large-scale analysis of 16 billion emails has revealed that more than 90% of replies are received within a day, and replies become shorter as the thread progresses. So, it’s entirely possible that many of these back-and-forths will already be resolved by the time you’re back.
Give yourself a decisive signal of what truly needs attention by attaching a one-page handover to your leave request in absence management software. Owners, deadlines, and a simple ‘ignore/monitor/respond’ label per workstream should help you filter your inbox.
Rule 4: Freeze meetings and chat for the first block of the day
To give yourself space, it can be useful to decline or move anything non-critical and switch chat to Do Not Disturb until your catch-up window ends. By doing this, you’re preventing the ‘infinite workday’ from swallowing your morning.
This term was coined by Microsoft and describes a phenomenon where a continuous cycle of work-related activities extends well beyond the standard 9-to-5 hours.
Set your absence management software to restore your availability only after your catch-up block finishes, so that invites and calls don’t flood back at 9 am.
Rule 5: Prevent the pile-up before you go (a 15-minute handover)
The best thing you can do for future you is to prevent the backlog before it builds up. Take fifteen minutes the day before you go to name a clear deputy, CC them into the live threads that truly matter, list five to ten items to watch with dates, and mark what can safely wait.
You’ll feel the productivity benefits: according to research, employees waste around 59 minutes a day hunting through cloud drives and message channels, while nearly half worry information won’t reach the right audience.
So, a compact, attached handover that routes traffic away from your inbox and towards the right person while you’re off can make your return a lot easier.
Consider absence management software for your business
If these five rules helped you imagine a calmer first day back, absence management software is what will turn it into a reality.
The same system you use to book leave can automatically hold your ‘return catch-up’ on the calendar, populate your out-of-office with the right dates and deputy, and keep a one-page handover attached to the request, so everyone knows who’s covering what.
When your goal is an inbox that feels manageable after every holiday, the only solution is to combine simple habits with a purpose-built system.
Many of his resources are available on various design marketplaces and for free on Codepen.
Over the years, he's worked with a range of clients and contributed to design publications like Design Your Way, Designmodo, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, and Speckyboy, andSlider Revolution among others.
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