The holiday season is stressful for many people but it often puts special pressure on self-employed and home-business owners.
Why? The holidays are the busiest business season for many entrepreneurs. Whether you design gift baskets, create monogrammed clothing, hand-craft candles, organize parties or pet-sit, you're probably starting to see an increased demand for your services. More money, which is great. But more hours in the office, too ... evenings, late nights, early mornings and weekends. It's hard to generate that holiday spirit when all you do is work.
As hard as it might be, though, make sure you don't let all that work destroy your enjoyment of the holidays. Here are a few suggestions for keeping a little festivity in your life, despite your business demands:
- Schedule time -- even if it's only one day -- to focus on nothing but your holiday preparations. The earlier you can schedule this day, the better, because it will help you arrange your work responsibilities around your planned “Holiday Day.”
- Keep a tradition. Whether it's an afternoon of shopping and dinner out with your mother on the last Saturday before Christmas or a candle-lighting ceremony every Sunday in December, make sure you don't eliminate the things you've always done that you enjoy doing most before the holidays.
- Get away from the office, even if you have to take your work with you. One couple I know of was overwhelmed by their craft business responsibilities right before Christmas but enjoyed a respite by booking a one-night stay at a cozy nearby bed-and-breakfast. Yes, they took their craft projects with them and spent time in their room working; but they also were able to enjoy home-cooked meals and conversations with other guests. Even more important, it got them into a different and refreshing environment for a little while when they were at risk of burning out.
- Enlist help whenever you can. If you still enjoy preparing your own holiday meals, great: go ahead and cook away. But if you hate cooking, don't feel guilty about staying out of the kitchen. Stock your freezer with gourmet dishes (not TV dinners) you can just pop into the oven after work. Order a ready-cooked turkey with all the fixings for your holiday dinner. Find as many ways as possible to eliminate the tasks you hate: hire a local student to shovel snow from your walk, call a maid service for those last-minute holiday cleaning needs, offer your next-door-neighbor's 17-year-old 50 bucks (or whatever's appropriate) to help you address, stamp and mail holiday cards to all your clients.
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