Today’s my first day back at work after two weeks of PTO. Which means one thing: Catch-up mode.
Slack messages. Threads. Notifications. Announcements. Emails. The quiet anxiety of not knowing what’s happened while you were away… and the mental scramble to figure out what the heck is going on.
I’ve been through this enough times now that I’ve developed a system. It works well for me—but I get why it wouldn’t for everyone. Because the first step in my system? It breaks the number one rule of modern tech PTO: I check Slack.
JIT
“JIT” stands for Just-in-Time, a concept from Lean manufacturing. The idea is to do things right when they’re needed—not before, not way after. Just in time.
I apply that principle to my return-to-work catchup process. Which means:
Yes, I check Slack while I’m still on vacation.
Incoming
Slack is the number one source of incoming things I’ll need to deal with. So I dip in every now and then. Maybe once or twice a day.
But I’m not reading to engage. I’m reading to process.
If it’s something I’ll need to respond to, I make a note of it and schedule it for my first day back. If it’s not? I mark it read and move on.
No lingering thoughts. No mental backlog. Just small resets, one Slack message at a time.
Curation
That quick scan also gives me a chance to prune and tidy.
When you’ve stepped away, you gain perspective. If I notice I’m in a Slack channel that no longer serves me—or that I no longer serve—I leave. No drama. No guilt.
That small act of curation reduces the noise. But it also welcomes me back into a version of work that feels more focused. More aligned with where I’m at now.
Sidenote: I only actively engaged on Slack once during PTO. That was the day we launched Webflow’s new Interactions—a project I was on for four months. I popped in to say hi and congrats. That’s it. If it weren’t for the launch, I wouldn’t have sent a single message. Back to the post!
Today’s Monday. And now, instead of sorting through 3,000+ messages, I’ve got 39.
Much better!
Schedule
Once I’ve processed the backlog, I drop into my usual Sunday evening ritual:
- I set up my week on a 3x5 index card
- I prep my Work Dailies for the week—just the Monday one gets filled in
With that done, I feel like I’ve got a handle on how Monday’s going to go.
Inbox zero doesn’t stop at Slack.
My Gmail’s set up with filters for common buckets—GitHub, Jira, calendar events, etc. I can bulk process emails quickly, and move the important ones into view for Monday.
It’s a mental pressure release. Precise enough to make Monday feel smooth before it even starts.
Depressurizing
All of this is really just about lowering the pressure. For my future self.
So time away stays away. And my first day back doesn’t hit like a freight train.
There are a few things I try to avoid:
- Pretending I’m “off” while secretly spiraling
- Coming back to inbox chaos
- Getting wrecked by the very first meeting
- Spending all of Monday recovering from Monday
- Using "Ya know… Mondays…" as an excuse
I don’t want my return to be defined by panic. I want it to feel… steady. Clear. Like I know what I’m walking into. Like I’m walking back on my own terms.
These little steps—scanning Slack, skimming emails, curating what matters—they don’t just help me catch up faster. They help me stay present while I’m away. They help me mean it when I say I’m on PTO.
Process
I know this probably sounds a little… intense. Maybe even wrong to some folks. And I get it. But this works for me. (No one has to follow what I do!)
Because I’ve learned this: my mind doesn’t switch off cleanly. Not from work. Not entirely. And when I try to fight that—when I pretend I can ignore every little thing—it only makes the noise louder.
So instead, I work with it.
I let myself check. I let myself note. I capture the ideas, the nudges, the reminders. And once I’ve written them down or made a decision about them, the compulsion goes away.
That’s the goal: to be present. With myself. With whatever I’m doing on PTO. And later, to return with confidence that I’ve already caught the thread.
This isn’t about working on vacation.
It’s about working with your own mind. Knowing how it moves. And setting your future self up to feel ready, not overwhelmed.
That’s what my system does. It clears the fog early. So when Monday comes—I don’t feel buried. I feel back.
P.S. This doesn’t mean I’m glued to Slack. My phone screen time was pretty low (thankfully). If anything, I checked X and LinkedIn more than usual—because of the Interactions launch, haha.