The holiday season is something that most of us look forward to, and sometimes we have to work on holidays. While it is tough to work when the world is taking the day off, it is a feature of some businesses.
However, if you are going to work during the holidays, you should be productive and avoid burning out.
So, in this blog post, we will explore ways to stay productive during the holidays without overworking yourself into burnout.
You understand your limits better than someone else, so when you feel that you can not take more responsibility during the holiday season and have hit your limit, it is your responsibility to say "no."
A sustainable productivity practice is not about saying "yes" to everything but those that are necessary and will move the needle for your business without exhausting you. To ensure smooth approval, keep the communication clear, justify your reasoning and seek the exemption in writing.
This hack does not apply to those who can not modify their hours of operation, but if you can do it, you should take a strategic approach.
Figure out your biological prime time, your most important tasks, and your own schedule to prepare an optimal plan. Once you have the plan, use the Routine Planner to schedule all your tasks. If you still need to sign up for Routine, you can do so here.
If your work during the holiday season revolves around groups for administrative tasks, marketing tasks, etc., consider chunking them into groups and assigning a time block to them.
Chunking helps because you are doing a particular type of task for a long time and hence can build up some familiarity, making you more efficient and fast in performing the said group of tasks.
One of the biggest drainers of productivity during the holiday period is redundant or incorrect work due to a lapse in communication. Since the volume of work is typically higher during these times, it is more likely that there are communication lapses.
A good way to ensure high productivity is by keeping one communication channel/group for each business area, so there is understanding. It would help if you also documented all your synchronous communication, so there are no ambiguities in what was discussed.
It is easy to overwork yourself during the holidays, but there are more sustainable strategies for long-term success. You have to dedicate time to maintaining a healthy lifestyle so that it feeds into your productivity.
Aspects like good sleep, timely meals, and good hygiene are critical. Without managing these basic tenets of a good lifestyle, your productivity will take a nosedive.
It would help if you prioritized your tasks to figure out the best possible strategy to complete them. So, use the Ivy Lee Method, where you shortlist six critical tasks that need to be completed, rank them according to priority, and then execute them chronologically.
The Ivy Lee Method will help you structure your tasks into an actionable list, and once you have that list, you can schedule them on your Routine Calendar. You can also use another productivity method with ILM called the "Eat the frog" method, where you finish the most challenging yet critical task first thing in the morning.
Holidays for some businesses can be a critical period. Hence it is sometimes more important to manage your productivity during the holidays than on regular working days. With the hacks mentioned above, you'll be able to improve your productivity during the holidays. Did we miss anything? Let us know on Twitter @RoutineHQ.
Thanks for reading.
