Blog1 min read
Music for the first day back from holiday
Re-entry. The first hour wants lo-fi; the rest of the day wants the focus room turned down two notches.
The first day back from holiday is a re-entry, and music helps or hurts in a small way that becomes a big way by mid-morning. The desk is unfamiliar even though it's the one you left. Email has accumulated. Everyone wants ten minutes.
The focus room mostly works, but with one adjustment — start it later than you would normally. The first hour wants lo-fi, low energy, a slow ramp. Going straight into deep ambient on the first morning back is a way to fall asleep at the keyboard by ten.
What helps is music that signals that work has resumed without insisting on it. The same playlist you ended on before the holiday is a fine choice; the brain treats it like a continuity. New music for the first day back is a small unkindness to yourself.
By the second day the rooms snap back. The first day is its own brief, and most of it is letting the body remember that it can do this. Music doesn't fix the day, but it does pace it, which on a first day back is most of what you need.