When transitioning from sleep mode to active mode, a processing system loads first stage resume content and second stage resume content into a volatile memory of the processing system. The first stage resume content may contain contextual data for a first program that was in use before the processing system transitioned to sleep mode. The second stage resume content may contain contextual data for another program that was in use before the processing system transitioned to sleep mode. The processing system may provide a user interface for the first program before all of the second stage resume content has been loaded into the volatile memory. Other embodiments are described and claimed.