Time for a holiday?

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I'm writing this blog as I sit next to the swimming pool, in glorious sunshine, on a holiday to South Africa . This introductory sentence is not designed to provoke jealousy in the reader, but to set the context of some things I wanted to write about in this blog. This holiday, and other I have taken in the past couple of years, have taught me some important lessons that I wanted to share.

This first lesson was the experience I had on the day before I set off on holiday. This turned out to be my single most productive working day in recent memory. Before I left the office on the previous evening I spent a few minutes making a short list of the activities I had to complete before I could fully relax and leave for my holiday. Whilst I always maintain a rolling to-do list, this has not been the best productivity tool due to its never-ending nature. On the final working day before my holiday started I was able to make rapid progress through the task list. In fact, th...

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