Holiday Busy Season Prep - 3 Productivity Tips
We are officially only SIX WEEKS out from the end of 2024 - how?!
If you’re excited for the magic (and chaos) of the holiday season while also extremely stressed…welcome.
The end of the year is an incredibly stressful time for hard working professionals. You’ve worked hard year round, your endurance is waning, and you are trying to figure out how to reconcile taking some (well deserved) time off to enjoy the holidays while also delivering on all your work in a short period of time.
It’s not lost on me that the holiday season is marked with two big holidays on the calendar during the last weeks of the month - the week's business is notoriously known for being incredibly demanding and busy. So before we meet the busiest weeks of the entire year… let me just remind you that you deserve to take time off, rest, recharge, and take advantage of whatever the holiday season brings.
You deserve to take some time off and in order to protect your time, your sanity, and your productivity during the holiday season, it’s important to communicate priorities, align on expectations, and ask for help.
3 tips for working professionals prep during the busy holiday season -
Communicate priorities
Be hyper-vigilant in communicating your priorities and the priorities of the business. In the last few weeks of the year, practice communicating what you are working on in relation to the priorities of the business so you can be crystal clear on what needs to get done in a concentrated period of time.
Business is notoriously known for adding more work to your plate when it might not be feasible to accomplish or even necessary to the overall objectives of the business. Use the phrase “I am currently working on… in order to contribute to the overall goal of…” in meetings and emails when tasks are being delegated and projects are being discussed.
2. Align on expectations
Once priorities are communicated, you can better align on expectations. Have you ever heard the phrase “we can do it all, but we can’t do it all at once?” The same applies to business. If more work is being added to your plate, or deadlines are being shifted, explicitly ask for new expectations. It can look like, “Hey boss/client, I am happy to help with this project. I am currently working on [insert current task]. Do you want me to shift my focus to this other project instead? If so, let’s chat about updated timelines and expectations for everything I’m working on alongside my availability this week”
Be firm in the fact that you can do it, but you can’t do it ALL at once. In order to protect your time off to celebrate the various events during the holiday season, set expectations with the people you work with.
3. Ask for help
This might be the hardest tip for hard working professionals. If there is one thing you can do for your mental, physical, and emotional health this season, it’s to ask for help. Contrary to what you may think, ask for help outside the workplace. Have your groceries delivered, block out an hour on your calendar to clean the house, hire a babysitter so you can go Christmas shopping, ask a coworker to be the contact listed on your out of office message.
Take a look at your to do list every week until year end and challenge yourself to ask for help on ONE task on your to do list each week. This will help alleviate your stress, add resources you can rely on, and help you show up in the way you want and need to both inside and outside the workplace.
The holidays are an incredibly stressful time personally and professionally so I need you to protect your time, communicate priorities and expectations, and ask for help.
