Some Tips For a Stress Free Holiday…

As I’m writing this, I just finished making yet another batch of Christmas cookies. Then I had to hurry up and get cracking on this blog or you wouldn’t be reading it right now! For me there’s always a love-loathe relationship with this time of year.

I love the holidays because there are so many fun traditions, time to spend with family, friends, great food and wonderful holiday treats. The loathe part, or rather the dislike part comes in with the stress of shopping, buying and wrapping presents, plus writing and mailing cards, making of cookies, and on and on… The good news is my holidays are so much better than they used to be. I finally got organized and started to automate some of my holiday processes so it is less stressful.

Here are some of my secrets – I try to get as many presents pre-wrapped, and do ALL my shopping online. Plus, I create my holiday cards online, pre-printed and mailed for me (I use Sendoutcards.com ) . If I’m running behind or want to do a different kind of card, sometimes I go to Vista Print and have them print and mail to me. Then all I do is put my envelopes in my printer and voila– my envelopes are pre- addressed legibly! And I even get my son to put the stamps on them.

The key to relieving holiday stress for me is automate! I can do this because I have invested my time into creating a plan. I figure out what I want to do versus what I can have someone else do FOR ME.

You would be amazed of the results if you took this simple process into your business. Invest your time wisely by creating a plan. Write a list of what you want to do and how much time it would take you to do it versus if you paid someone else to do it. I guarantee you, your time is worth a lot more money than if you hired someone from guru.com or elance.com to do it for you. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.

Let’s all make a vow for the New Year to automate more processes in our personal and work life. We are all guilty of putting way too many things are our own “to do” lists. We need to be more realistic in what we can actually do versus what we would like to do.

So, let’s save our valuable time and put it to good use, like spending it with family and friends! I don’t know about you, but time with my family is very important to me because in my book, family and friends are what the holidays are all about. It’s about having quality time catching up with old friends, colleagues and family. It’s about giving. We give of ourselves by giving our time as well as giving actual gifts to those we love. And we can’t do this if we are too busy trying to do way more things than we ever have time for. Finally, we must remember to give to ourselves too. Take some time out for yourself and breathe, stop “doing” for a moment and just “be” in the moment, enjoy the here and now, don’t worry about what’s next… Because before you know it, you’ll blink and another year has gone by…