Keeping up with seasonal demands, both professionally and personally, can be challenging for any small business owner. Use these five tools to make the holidays easier, more enjoyable and less stressful.
By Maureen Consdine Gharrity
Wellness during the holidays is about more than washing your hands and standing six feet apart, though that has been the focus over the last few years. Now, however, family fun, gatherings and holiday events are coming back strong. With renewed excitement for family gatherings, holiday celebrations and obligations can come more stress.
There’s a balance that needs to happen, now more than ever, and I find myself saying that often recently. A balance. This means balancing attention across all the areas of your life, not just one or two. Some of those areas may have been neglected over the past few years, while you have concentrated on working from home—often times with other family members at home too.
As business owners and entrepreneurs, we learn early that the business can easily take over your time, energy and pretty much everything else. It will fill the time allotted—and then some—and soon you may find yourself overwhelmed, inundated and burnt out!
The holidays are no exception. While they are meant to be fun, joyous and full of happy occasions, they can also be pressure filled, busy and stressful. They often require hustling around, taking care of to-do lists, shopping, decorating and party planning, just to name a few.
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So how do you balance all of this in order to be productive, finish the year off strong AND enjoy the holidays?
The balance is in the boundaries. Placing boundaries around your time and your tasks—as well as on yourself and your outlook on the holidays—can help you strike a balance that allows you to stay productive, while also finding enjoyment in the season.
It seems that most people view balance as a destination to get to or an outcome to accomplish. I believe this is where the frustration comes in; you think you’re supposed to create this perfectly balanced life and when you don’t, you assume you must be doing something wrong.
If the idea of balance is viewed on a continuum instead, as something you review and adjust on a regular basis—such as every month—it is very freeing. There is no getting around the fact that things change and new things come up. It’s the way things are—especially during holidays!
So, give yourself the opportunity to regularly review how balanced your life is and the flexibility to make adjustments as needed. This one simple change can help you feel more in control of your time, your choices and your success.
These tools that I am about to share will help make the holidays easier, more enjoyable and less stressful. They will help you to finish the year strong and transition into the new one just as strong. They can help increase your productivity, efficiency and organization, while still allowing you some time to unplug.
5 tools to workplace wellness during the holidays:
1. Use your calendar to your advantage. Sometimes it’s helpful to have it on your phone, for others it’s better and more productive to have it on paper where you can see it easily. Take charge of your calendar rather than letting the hecticness of the season run the show. It might seem silly at first to write “wrap presents” on your calendar. But by blocking off specific time for even the most obvious tasks, you set yourself up to accomplish them on time and with as little stress as possible.
2. Set aside time for yourself. You can call it self-care if you want; either way it’s time for you to do whatever you want, including nothing at all. You can even do this for every member of your team and family, so they have time to think, play or chill.
3. Envision what you want the holidays to look like. Choose the top three things that you want the holidays to include. Be clear about what those are and put them in the calendar before you get too busy. You can do this for work and home. You will see that the calendar fills quickly, so set some boundaries to enable yourself to accomplish those top three things.
4. Determine what the most important things are that need to get done, now. Prioritizing tasks can be critical in your business—not only for focus, but also for productivity and to resist a slow-down or drop-off of results right before the end of the year.
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5. Ask for help and be clear on what you want that to look like. The holidays and the end of the year are routinely periods where people easily take on more than they can handle. They then struggle to accomplish everything and beat themselves up over it. Let this be the year you delegate and accept the help you need to remain productive while still enjoying your holiday.
One last note, you don’t have to adopt all of these ideas at once, pick one that sounds good to you and start there. The idea is to make life easier for you, not harder. The key is to just get started.
Maureen Consdine Gharrity is the founder and CEO of Finding Your Way Coaching. She is the top Wealth Health Creation Strategist for entrepreneurs, executives, and other high performers. She has over 25 years’ experience in sales and marketing and has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and executives in their careers and businesses. She has a B.A in Psychology, with training in mindset and the Psychology of Sales. You can reach her at: maureen@maureengharrity.com and https://www.maureengharrity.com.
