Now that my mother’s surgery is successfully over and I am home again, it is time to settle back into reality and into my routine—a process which I began late last week.

Getting back to reality can be quite difficult when you have been away from work for a whole week, whether you went on vacation or were caring for a family member. I have employed a few strategies to help myself adjust.

First, I remembered to set my “vacation responder” on my email program before I began my off time. (I put that phrase in quotation marks because that is what the email program calls it, even though a user might not be going to the beach or the mountains.) This takes the pressure off of me by telling people that they need to wait to hear from me. By the way, I never disclose my upcoming whereabouts when I write my outgoing message. I simply say that I am unavailable from date X to date Y and will be available again on date Z.

Second, when I got back to the grind,  I went into my online bank account and took notice of any money that had come in. Then I recorded this in my ledger. My clients had all paid on time, which was excellent.

Third,  I paid outstanding bills. By “outstanding” I do not mean overdue. I mean bills that hadn’t been paid yet. It feels good to know that this has been taken care of. When you are a freelancer, you are both accounts receivable and accounts payable.

Fourth,  I tidied up my desk. I’d had a small pile of miscellaneous papers in one far corner, and it was time to attack. I went to work filing and organizing and throwing out. Now my desk is neat again.

Fifth, I wrote this blog post.

How about you? What do you do to transition into reality when you have been away from work?

I deeply apologize to my readers for being MIA last Sunday.

I had so much editing work going on that I could not fit blogging into my schedule—which is kind of a good problem to have.

Needless to say, I accomplished a lot this week.

First, I scored a new client by way of the EFA Job List. Although I check the Job List regularly, it is rare that I find an announcement for a gig for which I am qualified, and if I were to apply for a job for which I am not well qualified, I would make myself and the EFA look bad. So I rarely apply for jobs that I see advertised on the Job List, and every time I have applied, I have never been the chosen applicant.

That is, until last week. An author selected me to copyedit a short essay she had written. The essay was fascinating, and the author was pleased with my editing. Score one.

Second, I helped a friend’s husband by editing some material of his. The material is confidential, so I cannot go into what it was. But my friend’s husband was very happy with my results. Score two.

Finally, I edited three webpages which will be placed on the site of the furniture company for which the same friend works. This work was different, because I was not editing on a Word document with Track Changes. I went through each page and compiled a list of issues in Word. The company was satisfied with my results. Score three. (Bonus: I got to see a lot of beautiful photos on the pages, although I did not have the time to stare at them.)

I am especially glad that I had such a productive week, because starting in the middle of this week, I will be absent for about seven days. I will be taking my aging mother to her surgery (in a location that is an hour from where she lives) and then taking her home and caring for her.

Would you like to share what you accomplished this week?