Winter holidays offer a spot of joy when things are at their dreariest. We light candles, decorate with bright colors, and sing out against the darkness. Traditions revolving around these holidays are often designed to evoke gratitude, giving, and celebration—to warm and cheer our hearts.
For all their cheer and merriment, the festivities and expectations attached to the season can be stressful. More time is allocated to our family and friends during the holidays, leaving less available to focus on our careers and ourselves. This can be especially detrimental to entrepreneurs, freelancers, and remote workers.
Coworking can help by providing the tools you need to mitigate some of the biggest threats to your holiday harmony and remain balanced and productive throughout the holiday season.
Threat to Holiday Harmony #1- Maintaining your routine
From the first virtual Friendsgiving preparations to the final stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, the holiday season has a way of messing with our routines. Holiday events and extra errands interrupt our daily schedules, and connecting with friends and family is a complicated waltz between calendars and time zones.
Becoming part of a coworking space, especially one with a robust on and offline community, can help to provide a sense of structure. Weekly work sprints can provide not only motivation but a sense of routine as well. Structured productivity groups like cotivation help to keep participants focused on their most important goals, even during uncertain times.
Threat to Holiday Harmony #2- Too Much Togetherness
Family members and roommates are likely to be home more during the holidays. For those of us who work from home, that means a lot more interruptions throughout the day.
A physical coworking space offers you the opportunity to get your work done in an area free of kids, cats, and restless roommates.
Threat to Holiday Harmony #3- Loneliness and Depression
While the holidays are often a time of community and togetherness, nobody is immune to loneliness and depression. Memories are often more poignant around the holidays, and the miles between family members may feel insurmountable.
Having consistent access to an active community of like-minded individuals reminds you that you are not alone in all this. Not only are your coworkers there to offer business advice, but they are also available to commiserate when your carefully prepared holiday spread catches on fire, listen to your stories of holidays past, and even share a few anecdotes of their own.
Threat to Holiday Harmony #4- Unreasonable Expectations
The word holiday often conjures up images of beautiful home-cooked meals, joyful celebrations, and relaxing hours by a warm fire. To manifest any of those images in reality, however, takes significant time and preparation, the kind of time that many entrepreneurs and freelancers simply don’t have.
Holiday overwhelm can easily turn a much-needed respite into a source of additional stress and divisiveness. An open and accessible community of coworkers provides a sounding board of diverse individuals willing and able to recommend useful resources and provide thoughtful advice. Collaborating with other members of your coworking community will help you find the tools to swiftly turn your to-dos into to-dones, and check them off your list.
For many entrepreneurs, freelancers, and other remote workers, the holiday season is a swiftly moving roller coaster—full of ups, downs, twists, and turns. It’s an exhilarating ride, but it can be nerve-wracking.
A good coworking community can provide the boost you need to ensure that you stay on track and keep moving forward, no matter what circumstances present themselves.
Ready to eradicate threats to your holiday harmony? Sign up for a virtual or in-person tour of Cohere Coworking today in Old Town Fort Collins!
Penny Leigh Sebring is a Cohere member, experienced freelance writer, neophyte speculative fiction author, and gatherer of information and imaginary friends.
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash