Rejoice! You Can Have a Stress-free Holiday!

During the hustle and bustle of this hectic time of year, women often feel responsible for making the holidays perfect. This can leave you feeling overwhelmed and pressed for time, stressed out and exhausted.

Still, it’s possible to recapture the meaning of the holiday season and make it truly enjoyable for you and your family. Try these survival strategies and you too can rejoice in a stress-free and meaningful holiday season.

Set Realistic Priorities in Line with Your Family’s Values – the pursuit of the perfect holiday gathering can leave you feeling let down if your celebration doesn’t live up to your expectations. I recall a client, a busy mom of three children, who insisted on continuing a long-time tradition of putting up and decorating three Christmas trees each year in her moderately-sized home. I suggested that we ask her family if it was essential to them to have three Christmas trees in their home in order to enjoy their holiday. They unanimously shared that three Christmas trees was their mom’s idea, and that it was much more important to them to enjoy time with their parents than the number of Christmas trees they put up. This is an excellent example of how important it is to keep your goals and expectations realistic.

Don’t Procrastinate – last-minute shopping may save you some money, but the headaches, extra time and stress you’ll experience from fighting the crowds aren’t worth it. The holidays are no time for procrastination! Make lists and accomplish your goals by a certain date so you can relax and truly enjoy the holidays.

Adopt a K.I.S.S. Attitude (Keep It Simple Sweetie) – Meals don’t have to be elaborate to be wonderful. After several years of trying, I finally convinced my mother that we didn’t need fine china and polished silver to have a wonderful holiday together. After she stopped this elaborate tradition, we had more stress-free quality time with her, which was much more important than eating on (and hand-washing) fine china. Suggest that your guests lend a hand and bring a side dish to the festivities. When shipping, choose simple, thoughtful gifts rather than lavish expensive ones.

Keep Greeting Cards & Gifts Organized – Throughout the holiday season, we are purchasing and stockpiling gifts and greeting cards in preparation to give them.  How many times have you purchased a greeting card or gift in advance, then when it’s time to give it, you can’t find it? I often set up a gift and greeting card center for my clients.  Our Greeting Card Organizer can serve as a home for all your greeting cards during the holidays and throughout the year.

Have a Plan … But Go With the Flow – Holiday traditions evolve over the years. While you may be disappointed if you can’t quite re-enact the exact celebration of yore, learn to go with the flow so you can find happiness in creating new memories with your family.

Stay Healthy – You can’t truly appreciate the holidays if you’re exhausted and worn down with too much food, drink and too little sleep. Be mindful of your physical and mental wellbeing during this hectic time.

Take a Break and BREATHE – Try not to spread yourself too thin. Setting boundaries and learning to say no is never a more important skill to exercise than during the holidays. Remember the true meaning of the season and only attend the holiday activities and family gatherings that you enjoy and set aside some time for yourself each day. You should be as good to yourself as you are to others.

Originally posted 2008-11-10 19:26:57. Republished by Old Post Promoter

Tackling the Dreaded To Do List

Trying to get things done around the house, but feeling overwhelmed by your never-ending list of things-to-do?

Here’s a simple system that works.

Make a Master Task List of everything you have to, or want, to do. Don’t worry about the order right now.  You’re basically brain-dumping on paper all your To-Do’s to get the thoughts out of your head and onto paper. This exercise  creates a master laundry list of tasks.

Now, beside each task on your master list, assign a letter of priority:

A = Important / Urgent

B = Important, but Not Urgent

C = Would be nice to do

Each day, transfer no more than 4 items (3 is ideal) from the master list to your To Do List (two A Priorities, one B Priority, and one A, B or C Priority). Focus on completing only those items and forget the rest for now.  When you’ve completed the 4 items on your list, feel free to transfer 4 more items from your Master List to your To Do List.

The key to this system is that you’ve gotten all those pesky tasks that swim around in your head, onto paper. Then by moving to your To-Do list and focusing only 3-4 tasks per day, you’ve kept your list manageable and attainable, rather than setting yourself up for failure by a To Do list that not even Super-woman could accomplish.

By using this system every day, you’ll be amazed at all you can accomplish in less time and less stress!

Find this To Do list notepad at The Simplified Home.