# The one thing to remember

- **Episode:** [219](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/219.md) (2025-07-31)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** tips, boundaries, work-life-balance
- **Time:** 34:49–38:20 (start 2089s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/219?t=2089](https://truthliesandwork.com/219?t=2089)

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[34:49] Leanne Elliott: I mean, for people listening who are like, okay, I've got some good tips here, some good things that I can do before I go, whilst I'm on holiday, there is the inevitable reentry, that going back into work, that day one, that inbox. How do you, how do you prepare for that on the Sunday night before the Monday morning? How do you prepare for that and how do you deal with, with what you're walking into when you get there?
[35:12] Elaine Smith: Ideally, what I would recommend, you actually prepare for that before you even go on holiday because you block out the time for looking at your emails when you get back. So obviously it depends what your role is, but wherever possible, you know how sometimes we can be overly optimistic and think After my holiday, I'll sort that after the holiday, I'll sort that after the holiday. And you've got— you come back and you think, I really wish pre-holiday me had done that task, right? So what we don't want to do is overload all that stuff at once when we get back, because it's not going to— you're not going to— nobody's going to win from that. It can feel like there's a compulsion to fill up the diary. So block out at least— well, it depends— at least that morning that you get back. Just to prioritize. And that's what you're going to do. You're just going to prioritize your, your emails, and you're going to look at them, and you're going to see— you could maybe grade them or whatever and see what really needs attention. A lot of them, as we know, probably, you know, sort of emailed to everybody, or you're CC'd in, or it's not even that important, right? So The number is not that important. It's more of what you have to engage with. So try not to get engrossed in the number of emails you have. Try to work out how many you actually need to reply to. It's probably quite a small percentage. I'd say probably 5 or 10%. And then, um, yeah, so block out the time. Remember what you said in your out-of-office about how long you were going to take to reply and resist the urge it all to be immediate or feel like, or feel like everybody knows that you're back. Everybody in the whole company knows that you're back and they're all waiting for your reply because they're not. You know, there might be one or two, but they're not all thinking, back today, back today. That's probably more in our mind. And just have realistic goals. You know, you're probably not going to reach inbox zero, but what you're going to do is you're going to just manage it. Have a bit of perspective as well. Like, if it all becomes a lot, and you become— feel a bit overwhelmed or anxious, just think, these are only emails. Like, really? Well, we need to zoom out sometimes and check ourselves and go, these are only emails. If something was really urgent, it'll be passed to somebody else and it's probably been dealt with. And you'll probably go through an email like that and see it's actually been resolved. And if you do see that, think, see, that's actually what happens if something becomes urgent. That's what should happen anyway. Um, so yeah, it's about taking the time and not feeling like you're in this massive rush, because you've already set yourself up before your holiday. You've got this, at least this full morning, and you've already told people it might take 2 or 3 business days, whatever you state. So I think the preparation comes, comes quite a time before you go back
[38:03] Leanne Elliott: I, I think it's so important, isn't it? You know, something that Al will always say, and, and I have now absorbed it as well, Um, he's always saying, how can I be as kind as possible to future Al? And I kind of think the same, like, how can I be as kind as possible to future Leanne? I should probably load the dishwasher before I go to bed