A Consultant’s Guide to Actually Having a Christmas Break

**There is very little I enjoy more than the break. The slow mornings, the loose plans, the sense that nothing urgent is allowed to happen for a few days. **

Before I disappear into baggy jogging bottoms and Baileys hot chocolates that technically qualify as breakfast, I thought I’d share a small bonus newsletter. Seasonal nonsense, mostly. Possibly useful later.

Consulting has a peculiar definition of time off. Officially you are away. Practically you are hovering near Wi-Fi, checking email like it might do something if ignored.

This is a short list of things worth doing if you want the break to register as a break. Read it lightly. Remember it later.

1. Silence Your Phone Like You Mean It

Focus mode that doesn’t negotiate. No “quick questions,” no “just looping you in.” If something genuinely catches fire, someone will find a way to call. They always do.

2. Create a Laptop Profile That Knows Nothing About You

A holiday account with no Slack, no Teams, no Outlook, and no emotional history. You open the laptop and there is nothing to manage. It feels wrong. Then it feels correct.

3. Evict Slack From Your Phone Until Further Notice

You can reinstall it in January. The app will survive. If you are genuinely needed over Christmas, someone should have had the courtesy to say so and compensate accordingly.

4. Write an Out-of-Office That Offers No Hope

No humour. No “limited access.” No soft edges. Dates, a contact, and a wall. Anything warmer is how Boxing Day gets ruined.

5. Deliberately Lose One Device

Phone or laptop. Pick one. Tell yourself it’s broken. Picture it gently slipping into a canal. Relief arrives when at least one door is properly locked.

6. Accept That the Only Thing on Fire Is the Log Burner

No programmes will implode. No clients will spiral into chaos. If anything does flare up, it will be a group chat, and that can wait.

7. Refuse to Learn Anything New This Week

There will be no breakthroughs that cannot survive until January. Someone will still be redefining transformation. AI will remain imminent and vaguely explained. You lose nothing by not knowing yet.

8. Dress for Comfort, Not Credibility

Baggy jogging bottoms. Thick socks. Possibly novelty. You are not being assessed. Dress accordingly.

9. Let the Mince Pies Win

They are not going to eat themselves. This is not a lapse in discipline. It is seasonal realism.

10. Deploy Sprouts With Tactical Precision

Quietly loading extra sprouts onto a sibling’s plate is not cruelty, it is tradition. Timing, eye contact, and plausible deniability are key.

11. Build a Playlist Everyone Pretends Not to Love

Not your algorithmic mix. A shared one. Songs everyone knows the words to, even if no one admits liking them. Music has a way of turning roles back into people.

12. Put Elf on Until It Becomes Background Noise

Christmas films are not meant to be watched once. They are reassurance. Familiar lines. Predictable endings. The opposite of work.

13. Become a One-Person Amazon Driver

The late-afternoon gift dash to family friends. Inefficient, mildly chaotic, and oddly satisfying. Effort still counts, even when it’s messy.

14. Listen Without Steering the Conversation

Let it wander. Let it repeat itself. Listen to that elderly relation with the same intent you reserve for the director who insists cameras should be on. Nothing needs to be decided.

15. Cook Something That Refuses to Be Rushed

Not optimised. Not quick. Something that occupies your hands and ignores your calendar. You cannot baste and email.

16. Do One Pointless Thing Exceptionally Well

Perfect gravy. A well-timed joke. A decent snowman. Small competence, applied where it doesn’t matter, is deeply calming.

17. Go for a Walk That Achieves Nothing

No steps target. No podcast. Just air, movement, and the absence of urgency.

18. Leave Something Unfinished on Purpose

Nothing important. Just visible. It reassures the organisation, and it reassures you.

19. Write Yourself a ‘Sorry You Had to Come Back to This’ Note

For January. Acknowledge you’ll return heavier, happier, and expected to care deeply again. Promise to ease in. You may not keep that promise. It still helps.

20. Answer ‘What Are You Up To?’ With ‘Not Much’

And stop there. It is a complete answer.

21. Allow the Day to Lose Its Edges

Meals blur. Time softens. The world will resume its insistence on structure soon enough.

Most of this will be read, smiled at, and dismissed as festive indulgence. That’s fine.

The real benefit arrives later, when you realise you did not check your email once, and nothing terrible happened.

Have a very merry Christmas.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read, reply, disagree politely, or send a note that started with "I thought this was just me." Those exchanges are the point. They are why I keep writing.

Eat well. Be merry. Spend time with the small inner core of people who make the rest of the noise fade out. The ones who do not care what you shipped this quarter or how many decks you survived.

I’ll be doing the same, mostly in jogging bottoms, occasionally with a Baileys hot chocolate, and with absolutely no intention of checking Slack.

See you in the new year.