Consulting After the Break: How to Ease Back Without Overloading Yourself

Plus: a few thoughts on post-vacation reflection and what to do if things are quiet

Coming back from vacation can feel like rebooting an old laptop: slow, slightly confused, and with a dozen updates waiting in the background.

In consulting, the tempo can be high even on a normal week—so coming back after time off can easily lead to overloading yourself. There’s catch-up to do, expectations to meet, and inboxes to triage. But here’s the truth: you don’t have to hit 100 % on day one. And you probably shouldn’t.

1. Take the First Days as Re-entry, Not a Sprint

Resist the urge to fill your calendar immediately. You don’t have to make up for the time you’ve been gone by compressing two weeks into two days. Instead:

• Start with low-friction tasks to build momentum.

• Protect blocks of time to read, think, and reconnect.

• Say “no” (or “not now”) when you need to.

Give yourself time to get your consulting rhythm back. Think of it as the recalibration phase, not performance mode.

2. Reconnect Before You React

Before diving into action, take some time to reconnect:

• What’s changed while you were away?

• What are others working on now?

• What’s actually urgent—and what just feels urgent?

Even one or two focused catch-up conversations can save hours of rework or confusion.

3. Reflect: What Did the Break Tell You?

Vacations have a funny way of clarifying things. When the noise fades, patterns become visible.

Take 20 minutes and write down:

• What did you not miss while you were away?

• What do you wish you had more of in your work?

• Did anything important surface while your mind had space?

You don’t need to change your career based on one week in Portugal—but noticing what lingered in your thoughts can be a helpful compass for the rest of the year.

4. What If It’s Quiet?

Sometimes, returning from vacation means... crickets. No immediate project. No new emails. No clear next step.

That’s not necessarily bad.

If you find yourself on the bench or in a low-busy spell:

• Reconnect with people—reach out to colleagues, managers, mentors, or old project contacts. A quick check-in can lead to your next opportunity.

• Pick up a development topic you’ve been postponing. This could be a new skill, certification, framework—or just finally reading that whitepaper.

• Write down your recent achievements. Reflect on what you delivered in your last project, what went well, and what you'd like to improve. You’ll thank yourself at the next performance review or job search.

• Offer help where it’s needed. Support an internal initiative, review someone’s draft, jump into presales. Visibility matters—and goodwill travels.

• Update your consultant CV and internal profile. Even if you don’t immediately need to be staffed in a new project, you should always be ready. It’s a way of keeping your story current.

• Scan for future opportunities. Follow what’s happening in your company, clients, or market. You don’t need to be in sales to spot a potential lead—or to ask if you can get involved in the pitch.

• Write a blog post or LinkedIn update. Share a recent insight, experience, or even just something you’ve been thinking about. Creating content helps you reflect, stay visible, and often sparks conversations you didn’t expect.

Sometimes, the best moves in your career happen when you’re not running flat out—but when you finally have the space to think.

Final Thoughts

Coming back from a break is a great time to reset intentionally, not just resume where you left off. You’re allowed to be thoughtful. You’re allowed to ease in. And you’re allowed to come back better, not just faster.

👉 How do you approach the first week back from vacation? And have you ever made a big career realization while offline? Drop a comment—I’d love to hear your strategies (and stories).

See you next time,
Eetu Niemi
IT Consulting Career Hub

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✍️ Author News

Just before the holidays, I wrapped up reviewing the copyedited manuscript of my upcoming book Enterprise Architecture: Your Guide to Organizational Transformation. The first proof (and cover!) just landed in my inbox for review.

And now it’s official: the book is available for preorder (also available from Amazon and local bookstores). If you want to stay tuned on this project, you can follow my enterprise architecture Substack.

On the fiction side, I recently signed a publishing deal for a new children’s book, and I’ve already started writing the next one. I’m also kicking off edits for my debut novel with a literary editor next week. Both of these projects will be in Finnish.

If you’re curious about my writing journey—be it enterprise architecture, consulting, fiction, or children’s books—you can follow along on my Facebook author page or Instagram. I sometimes share aviation stories there too. (Content in Finnish or English, depending on the project.)