Do you have to go to work on the day after Thanksgiving? Let’s face it Thanksgiving Friday is a useless day for most office workers. But, some companies do business on this day. Let’s look at the bright side; you can do a lot of catch-up work if you have to go to work.

Here are six things you can do:

• Clean out your files – Not fun, but needs to be done. Deep cleaning and refiling is a good 2-3 hour project.
• Revise policies– Operational procedures and other policies, like filing, get neglected. Spend time looking at systems and identifying what policies or procedures need some updating.
• Rewrite job descriptions – Review your team’s job descriptions. Are they current? If not, start revising or, at least, identify what parts need revisions.
• Update performance plans – Go over your staff’s performance plans. Make some notes about individuals’ achievements. Do the plans reflect team roles and responsibilities? If your company holds year-end evaluations, plan and schedule review meetings.
• Develop a holiday calendar – Create a Christmas vacation calendar that shows who will be working when. Email your calendar to your team and manager.
• Research – Do you have a project or assignment that is waiting for research? Friday after Thanksgiving is a good day to look for statistics, best practices or lay some groundwork.

These ideas are meant to get your creative juices going. The point I want to make is if you have to go work on the day after Thanksgiving you can turn it into a win-win. You may not have seniority or time saved to take the day off, but you can make the eight hours productive.