Catching Up Is a Project, So Run It Like One
“Catching Up Is a Project, So Run It Like One” - Estelle O'Callaghan
It's tempting to treat catching up as something you'll get through by working harder than everyone else for a few months. If you're a mid-career woman returning to work after long leave, whether that followed maternity leave, carer's leave, illness, redundancy or a messy divorce, you've probably felt that pull in your first week. The trouble is that effort without a shape spreads you thinly across everything that changed, including the parts that don't matter, and leaves you tired before you've found your feet.
What helps is a plan with a clear start, a clear finish and a small number of steps you can tick off. Catching up is a project. It has a scope, a timeframe and an outcome, and it deserves the same care you'd give any piece of work you were asked to deliver. Give it four weeks and one page.
WHAT IT COSTS TO CATCH UP WITHOUT A PLAN
When a return has no shape, three things tend to happen:
You try to learn everything at once. Every new acronym, system and reporting line looks equally urgent, so your energy goes to whatever is easiest to find rather than whatever changes decisions.
You say yes to the first piece of work offered. It feels like a quick way to show your value, but it can lock you into someone else's priorities before you know what yours should be.
The old shape of the role comes back by default. If nobody talks about hours, scope or the tasks you used to carry for others, the role you left becomes the role you return to, whether or not it still fits your life.
WHY A FOUR-WEEK PROJECT WORKS
An open-ended worry has no finish line, so it grows to fill whatever time and attention you give it. A four-week project has a clear order: you know what this week is for, what comes next and when you're done. It also gives the people around you something visible to notice, which matters when you're rebuilding their confidence in you as well as your own.
A plan makes the first week easier too, because it's only job is asking questions, and you can ask good questions well before you have the full picture.
THE FOUR_WEEK RETURN PLAN
Keep the whole plan on one page, with a line for each week and a note of what you'll have by the end of it.
Week one: gather intelligence, not output. Book twenty-minute conversations with around eight people across the organisation, and ask each of them the same three questions: "What's changed since I left?", "What's everyone pretending is fine?" and "Where do you think I'd be most useful?" Write down what you hear and hold off on solving anything, because you're drawing the map before you choose a route.
Week two: sort material from churn in two columns. Go back through your notes and put every change into one of two columns. The first is for changes that alter what gets decided, such as a new funding stream, a regulatory shift or a change in who signs off, and the second is for changes to a name, a template or a reporting line. In my experience, the first column is shorter than women expect, and the second you can learn as you go, gradually and without late nights.
Week three: finish one thing on time. Choose one useful piece of work you can complete within a fortnight and hand over properly, even if it isn't the biggest thing on offer. Credibility comes back when you say something will be ready by Thursday and it lands on time. Do that three times and you'll have proof for yourself and proof for others that you can deliver.
Week four: set the shape of the role. Use the settling-in conversation everyone expects to talk about your hours, what you're no longer covering and the tasks you used to carry that belong to someone else. Raised in week four, it's a normal part of coming back. Raised in month seven, it's a request to undo a pattern you've spent six months building.
KEEPING THE PROJECT ON TRACK
At the end of each week, spend ten minutes with your page. Note what you've learned, what you've finished and what you're carrying into the next week. For example, a question from week one that nobody could answer might become the first item in your week-four conversation, and a change you'd filed under churn might turn out to affect a decision you care about.
If a week runs long, move the next one back rather than skipping it. Week four is the one most often left out, and it's the one that shapes the next two years.
Remember, running your return like a project isn't about being rigid or pretending the transition is purely practical; it's about giving yourself a clear order to work in, so the energy you have goes to what matters first. Four weeks and one page later, you'll have a clearer map, a shorter catch-up list, one finished piece of work and a role that fits the life you're living now. That's it, you're back.
If you're back at work after long leave and your catch-up list still feels endless, the Ghanvey Digital Library gives you a room of mid-career women to work through the plan with, plus scripts, templates and challenges to use along the way. October's theme is "Not Behind", with a members-only live session on Friday 2 October at 10:30 am and an Implementation Lab on Friday 16 October. It's $49 a month, with no lock-in contracts.
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Warm Regards
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