by Piotr Golinski

Gift exchanges, birthdays, events, deadlines, family. The holiday season is a perfect storm to set off even the most tame personality and no matter what type of industry you work in, what remains the same is stressing over work (which is either too much or not enough). That’s why I believe it’s important to get into the right mindset to overcome any anxiety you might be dealing with.

For example, if you work in service somewhere like a coffee shop, no doubt you’re probably busier than ever, but you can try to think of this time as money-making-time. It’s your chance to clock in all your hours, pick up an extra shift or two if and make back some of the money spent on gifts and rising grocery costs – still dealing with whiplash from buying butter the other day. Keep in mind that, it won’t always be this busy and come January/February, things will even out. Probably by then, you’ll have become so efficient that rushes won’t even faze you.

On the other side of things, If you’re working in somewhere like real estate (aka me!) where this time is quite slow then it’s your chance to do all that backend stuff that you kept pushing off earlier in the year. Most homeowners/seekers put a pause on their buying/selling process to focus on family and all the other social obligations that come with the holidays, unless they’re on a time deadline. So use this quiet period to organize your tax receipts and documents, organize your database, add/remove contacts, re-structure and adjust processes that don’t work in your favour, maybe even take some time to hire help if you realize that you’re busy enough and need it.

And if all of this prep work is done and you’ve got a pipeline you’re happy with, then make like the market and your clients and take some time off for yourself. Spend some time with your yourself, friends, parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, whoever makes you happy. You can’t always have your productivity turned to 100%, it’s unsustainable and will only lead to burnout. If you want to perform the best when you’re needed, then you need to allow yourself to mentally and physically relax when you’re not needed.