We all know that Christmas is a great time to get together with friends and family, to enjoy the festivities. But just because Christmas is happening doesn’t mean that you don’t have work to do anymore. For a lot of us, December is actually one of the busiest months of the year so balancing what you have to get done and making sure you pack in enough festivities to tide you over til next year can be a challenge. Here are my tips for making it to the end of the tight rope walk that is December successfully.
LEAVE SPACE TO RECHARGE
I’m putting this right up at the top so you don’t forget it. You need time to rest. That means time not doing exciting Christmas things, time not working. You need time purely to rest. That could be taking an hour for yourself every day, or blocking out a full day to work from home and just recharge. If you don’t take just a little bit of a break you’ll end up struggling through the last few weeks of the year, not enjoying the celebrations and not working at your best, and who would want that?
BLOCK OUT TIME IN YOUR CALENDAR
I have spoken at length in a number of productivity based posts about the importance of time-blocking, but it is never more relevant than when you’re busy and juggling lots of priorities. Work doesn’t get done unless you give yourself the time to do it, especially if there’s the temptation of mulled wine right around every corner.
BE SENSIBLE WITH YOUR GOALS
Don’t set yourself an impossible task (this is always good advice FYI). I think you have to be understanding with yourself that you might have a little less time to do things than you might normally, and that will mean that you get less done, and that is okay. Taking the time to enjoy yourself is so important. So set yourself a sensible, achievable goal and don’t beat yourself up if you don’t quite meet it because Rudolph and his friends stopped by.
MAKE YOUR WORKSPACE A LITTLE BIT FESTIVE
There’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re cooped up away from the fun. Work, even if it’s tough, shouldn’t feel like a chore. That doesn’t make you inclined to do it, or to do it well. What works for me is to spruce up my space a little bit so that I can still feel like I’m in the Christmas spirit even if I’m churning out blog posts. I also like to reward myself with festive treats as I go – hello 3 empty packets of lebkuchen!
BE HONEST WITH YOUR FRIENDS
If you’ve got lots to do, don’t be afraid to tell people. Rather than making excuses, or anxious because you feel like you need to go out and work, just explain your situation. I promise you’ll find people are way more understanding than you might think.
thanks for these tips! i don’t celebrate christmas or anything like that but these tips are helpful not only for festive season but also in general too, especially the first point. as a workaholic fellow, most of the time i forgot about taking a break because i don’t think i deserve rest before i finalize things.
Taking breaks is so important, but learning to value them (to actually value them and not just say it) is super duper hard when so much is put on being productive
These tips are so important and definitely needed right now. I tend to somehow convince myself it’s ok to procrastinate when it’s festive season and it usually happens during Christmas.
It totally is as well – Christmas is a time for having fun and slobbing out in your pyjamas too! I hope you had a lovely time over the holidays whether you were super productive or not!