The holiday season is upon us! November and December are jam-packed, with major holidays almost every week from now until the end of the year. From Veteran’s Day today until New Year’s Eve on the last day of the year, people will be gathering both near and far to enjoy food, family, friendship, and festivities.
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As enjoyable as many aspects of these holidays are, as entrepreneurs and remote workers, they also add more tasks to our already robust to-do list and demand one of our most precious resources, time. Fortunately, there are many strategies that can help alleviate the stress of the season, allowing you to slow down and experience the joy the season brings, too.
Here are a few ideas to help tame your holiday havoc:
Be Selective
There are a million things available to do during the holiday season—meals with family or friends, holiday movies, arts and crafts, holiday arts and crafts fairs, shopping, work parties, holiday concerts, or big community events. Work obligations rarely slow down on their own during the holiday season, and in many cases may speed up. Trying to get it all done is a sure recipe for exhaustion.
Take a good hard look at your workload and decide what might be able to delegate to someone else, delay until the new year, or cut out entirely. Choose to attend just a few holiday events and activities, those that give you and your loved ones the most joy, and don’t sweat the others.
Employ Automation
One way to help ensure that the holidays don’t derail your business or career plans is to use automation to set reasonable expectations. Utilizing your email’s “Out-of-office” automated reply function can be customized to let clients or coworkers know not only that you won’t see the message right away, but also when they can expect a reply, and in some cases, where to reach you if it’s truly critical.
Voice mail messaging, automated text replies, and other correspondence can also be employed around the holidays to set expectations.
Avoid Comparisons
One of the quickest ways to spiral into a negative thought pattern is to compare yourself with others. Comparing ourselves to others often gives us a skewed image of the situation. We are privy to our own worst impulses, but only to the side of others that they wish to show us. In addition, we may not be aware of either the advantages or challenges the other person may be experiencing, further skewing the comparison.
Celebrate your Wins
This time of year moves fast and presents some unique challenges. It can be overwhelming, and people are often primed to focus on mistakes and missed opportunities rather than recognizing their successes. Take time to acknowledge the things you get right—celebrate your wins, big and small. Did you land a shiny new client? Fantastic! Did you get through your entire inbox without once diverting to Amazon to look for novelty socks for your Aunt Edna? You deserve a pat on the back! Did you look outside, see snow, and not immediately crawl back into bed? Well done!
Noting your successes, big and small, helps to reduce your stress and gives you more confidence and motivation to move on to that next win, and the next, and the next.
Schedule Self Care
The holiday season tends to get hectic for everyone. There’s more traffic, more expenses, more obligations, fewer breaks, and less time. It can be tempting to skimp on our self-care routines when the holiday rush saps our time and energy. Dropping components of our routine like exercise, meditation, relaxation, and even sleep may seem like a good way to find time, but this strategy frequently backfires.
Defending self-care appointments and scheduling extra time for relaxation and downtime in your calendar can help to ensure that you don’t end up with holiday burnout. More effective strategies might include meeting online rather than in person, trimming your work calendar for those months, and reducing your bigger projects down into smaller, more manageable chunks.
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The holiday season brings its share of beautiful sounds, bright lights, and amazing experiences to be savored. It’s hard to do that when we are feeling overwhelmed by extra expenses, tasks, and activities, as well as being inundated by more and more inconveniences.
Some of the most common strategies for dealing with holiday havoc aren’t necessarily the most helpful, however. For many, we end up making inconvenient and unsatisfying commitments while the items we drop off of our to-do lists are exactly the ones we need to effectively manage the stress of the season. Taking the time to understand your priorities and give yourself the required care and support will go a long way towards retaining your confidence and equilibrium throughout the hectic holiday season.
Penny Leigh Sebring is a Cohere member, experienced freelance writer, neophyte speculative fiction author, and gatherer of information and imaginary friends.