I have been spending a lot of time lately trying to juggle business and family time with the upcoming holiday’s, as I’m sure many of you business owners are doing as well. I’m not going away this year, so being at home and being a business owner, and a workaholic means I need to set some boundaries. This has lead to me setting some rules and guidelines that have helped me manage the last few weeks and I’m hoping will help me really enjoy the next few weeks as I celebrate Christmas and New Year’s with family and friends, and I thought I might share my thoughts on this and see if any of our readers have any suggestions that might help, so here we go.
- Rule # 1 — Get up early and work hard until noon. This has really helped me tackle huge to do lists before the day gets busy with holiday events, shopping outings, and out of the normal business requests for this time of the year. I find if I really focus between 7 am and noon I can knock much of the list off to make time for other things later in the day.
- Rule # 2 — Each night, make a to do list of top priorities that must be done the next day to keep the business running smoothly and then get that list done day to day.
- Rule # 3 — The last 5 days or so I have committed to ending my day at 5 pm, no later. This way I can spend time with my family in the evening and attend holiday parties etc.
- Rule # 4 — After today, I will not really do much work until Monday 1/29. This will allow me to really dedicate the next 5 days to my family for the holidays. I say, not much work because I know there will be a few things that probably come up that I’ll need to dedicate some time to, but these will be kept to a minimum.
- Rule # 5 — I will turn my phone off on Christmas eve and day so I cannot bother myself with checking emails, etc. and getting distracted.
- Rule # 6 — I did all my Christmas shopping online so I didn’t have to spend time at stores, etc.
- Rule # 7 — I’m going to spend 2 days with family doing things all day long outside the house, etc. We have a few events planned that will do just that.
- Rule # 8 — Don’t promise anything to be done for customers or clients until after 1/5.
There are my rules. I know this has helped out already this season and I’m hoping these rules will help with the upcoming week or so. If you have any tips or thoughts please share and have a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
