When the holidays roll around, it can be difficult to keep up with your regular business tasks. You might think that you need to work harder and longer, but this is actually when it’s more important than ever to take a step back and remember what’s truly important: running your business! Here are some tips on how to make sure that you’re keeping your head above water during this busy season:
1. Hire Help
The holiday season is a busy time of year, and it can be hard to keep up with all the extra tasks that come along with running a business. If you need some help, consider hiring a virtual assistant. A VA (or VA for short) will work remotely on your behalf, taking care of tasks like scheduling meetings and responding to emails. VAs have many skills but most importantly they know how to work efficiently and effectively so you don’t have to worry about missed deadlines or forgotten appointments. And because they’re not full-time employees, there’s no need for benefits or vacation days!
If hiring one person isn’t enough for what your business needs, consider hiring part-time workers in addition to VAs. This gives you the ability to scale up as needed without having additional overhead costs associated with an entire team.*
2. Set Your Office Hours in Advance
It’s important to set your office hours in advance and communicate them to clients. You can do this through email, social media, or the contact form on your website. If you have a virtual assistant, make sure they are aware of those hours as well—and that they work with you to keep them consistent across all platforms. No one wants to wait until December 24th just to get a response from their business owner!
3. Be Organized
- Prepare your workspace. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in your office, so make sure it’s organized and comfortable. Remove clutter, organize files and folders into neat piles, dust off the computer monitor and keyboard, put up some photos on the walls (they will help you feel more at home), and turn on some calming music—whatever makes you relax enough to work effectively.
- Organize your tasks. It’s tempting to let everything pile up during the holiday season because we’re so busy with parties, family visits, gift buying/wrapping/shipping—you know how it goes! But don’t let this happen by setting aside specific blocks of time for each task in advance (e.g., one hour every weeknight). That way you’ll avoid having too much stuff build up over time.
- Make room in your calendar for social activities without sacrificing work-related appointments or meetings with vendors or customers (or even just potential ones). This can help keep everyone happy while still keeping things moving along smoothly; plus since everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing they won’t mind helping out when necessary (which will eventually lead back into…).
4. Take A Break When You Need It
One of the most important things to remember is that you need to take a break when you need it. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the holidays and not want to stop working, but if you’re not careful, this can lead to burnout.
Try avoiding working on weekends as much as possible, and make sure that you are taking breaks during the day (even if it’s only for an hour). You don’t want your employees getting burnt out either!
Another tip is not working more than 8 hours per day—not only will this keep everyone happy throughout their shifts, but it also gives everyone at least one full day off per week. Of course, there are exceptions: some businesses might need extra hands during these busy times so employees may have multiple shifts scheduled over several days.
However, making sure that an employee gets at least one full day off every week will help them stay energized and productive during their work hours while also keeping them free from exhaustion after long shifts.*
Outsource to ease the burden
Outsourcing can help you focus on the important things
If you’re looking for a way to reduce your workload during this busy time of year, consider hiring someone who can take over some of your responsibilities. A virtual assistant (VA) is a great option because they can do tasks that are repetitive and easy for them.
This allows you to focus on other more difficult tasks without worrying about whether or not they are getting done. For example, if one of your jobs is sending out promotional emails every week, consider outsourcing this task so that it doesn’t take up any more of your time than necessary.
You can also outsource things like scheduling meetings or booking travel arrangements if those are things that would normally stress you out during this busy season!
Conclusion
I know what you’re thinking. We just talked about how exciting the holidays are for a business, but it can be overwhelming at times and there are things that you need to remember to do throughout this time of year.
The most important thing is to stay organized and have a plan so that your business doesn’t get out of control during this busy season! If you don’t have time right now (or ever), please check back soon as we will be releasing some more tips on how to keep your business running smoothly during these festive months
