Time Management Strategies to Survive a Ridiculously Long Holiday Season

24 hours is a really long time when you have no idea where the day will take you.

Sunday marked the beginning of Walmart’s holiday layaway plan, a whole month earlier than last year, officially kicking off the holiday season before summer has even officially ended. I believe that may just be a record—not counting those “Christmas in July” campaigns.

But, seriously, for many September is a bittersweet month. It’s the end of those long, hot summer days—of late quite humid, too—but also a kind of happy return to getting down to business. Chalk it up to that old “back-to-school” mentality, ingrained in so many of us, kicking in as kids actually go back to school. Or, the beginning of that last quarter of the year bearing down on us and the experience to know how quickly time will fly before we so much as work out our get-it-done-by-year-end lists. So, do we really need the added pressure of Christmas in September, too?

When I worked in higher education I quite literally measured out my life in accordance with the academic calendar and those six years flew by so fast I hardly remember what else happened in my life outside of work; in my memories everything still seems tethered to convocation, midterms, finals, graduation or winter or summer break. I left that job to spend six months in the Pacific Rim. My time included serving as a volunteer teacher in Thailand and in a cultural exchange program working for the Melbourne Film Office as well as traveling through several countries by myself.

My first day found me, after about 24 hours straight of travel from New York City, in Taipei, Taiwan absolutely exhausted, but unable to sleep; I spent all day sightseeing and even bought a ticket to the evening performance at the National Theater, which I watched with half-closed eyes. The next morning after not much sleep either, I sat writing in my journal of all I had done and experienced the day before. It occurred to me I’d already learned one of the greatest lessons of my life: 24 hours is a really long time when you have no idea where the day will take you.

When I returned from my travels and reentered the workforce it was a real challenge not to get caught up in living in the future tense. You know what I mean? “I can wait till next weekend/my vacation/the holiday.” Or, even worse was living days ahead at work, envisioning what needed to get done and making lists for each day of the week; such endless planning ahead was like slow death by post-it notes and reminder emails to self.

So how do we navigate what is for so many of us the pressure cooker time of year when our lives accelerate on almost all fronts, demand for our attention increases exponentially, and we have even less time to spare than usual? Here’s what I have found helpful:

• Identify your priorities--Know what’s important to you and in what order; then, when you have to make decisions about how to divvy up your attention remind yourself where your own interests lie.
• Set achievable goals—Whether you want to make your child’s Halloween costume from scratch; land a whale of a new client; connect with C-level execs through social media to find your next job; or, save enough to afford those holiday gifts, be realistic when defining your goals so you can actually achieve them.
• Minimize your “must-do” list—It’s just as self-defeating to have too many things to accomplish, as it is to have a handful of really difficult to nearly impossible things to accomplish. There are enough studies proving that multitasking doesn’t actually make us more productive, but less, so use your priorities to develop a short list of critical goals you need to get done over the next few months and then focus in and get busy.
• Change expectations—This is a two-step process. First, you need to change your own expectations of what others expect of you and how you'll be thought of if you don’t live up to those expectations. To some extent what we think people expect of us is basically true because that’s what we’ve trained them to expect from us through our behavior. Here’s where step two comes in: If we change our behavior, we can teach others to expect something different thereby changing their expectations of us. It might take a little time and be a little painful, but eventually your new behavior will become old habit and so will the new expectations others have of you.
• Learn to say “No” the right way--Yes, there really is a right way to say, “no” so you’re not either endlessly apologizing, feeling horribly guilty, owing someone a huge favor down the road, putting yourself at a significant personal or professional disadvantage, or simply in the doghouse. Learning how to gracefully decline invitations, turn down opportunities and proposals, disengage from clients, and even say “No” to the boss is one of the biggest life and time saving skills you can acquire. If you’d like more information, let’s talk.​​