The Secrets to a Peaceful and Joyful Holiday Season

As a time management and productivity specialist, I am often asked how to avoid the stress of the holiday season, and even if it is possible in the first place. It is actually not only possible, it is easy to do. All you need is a few easy-to-learn techniques at your fingertips.

There are just a few secrets to a peaceful and joyful holiday season:

Planing ahead
Planning ahead is the key to being ready early - or at the very latest on time - and avoid the deadline stress that often overtake the season. By getting started on the holidays now, before the time crunch hits, makes all the difference in the stress experiences by the time Thanksgiving comes.

Getting organized
Americans spend on average an hour a day looking for stuff. Getting organized is the key to regaining this daily hour for productive work or rest, and it's easier than usually thought. It's a question of grouping like things with like things, within easy reach, and make sure that everything has a home and a container to hold it.

Mastering stress
Stress is impossible to completely avoid, and while the two points above go a long way to alleviating it, having some stress management techniques for those unavoidable instances drastically reduce the productivity loss and health issues related with it. Deep breathing, yoga, relaxation techniques allow the body to cut the stress response and the brain to stay alert, focused and fresh.

Dealing with emotions in a productive way
Pleasant and unpleasant emotions are an integral part of the holiday season. Having some tricks to release them and dealing with them productively goes a long way to enjoying the season, by reducing stress and conflict. Writing down emotions, using a tool such as Emotional Freedom Techniques are powerful ways of letting your emotions out.

Ruthlessly protecting every minute of the day
During the holiday season, there are more demands than ever on most people’s time. It is thus crucial to a peaceful and joyful holiday season that every minute be jealously protected and used for what truly matters then, rather than squandered on unnecessary tasks and random people. We all have 1440 minutes in a day, the only difference is what we do with them: using them consciously, on activities that we want and need to perform, or waste them on things we don't need to do in the first place.

Not sure how to do it? Enter phrases such as "holiday survival", "avoid end of year stress" and "organizing for the holidays" in your favorite search engine to find resources that will help you acquire those skills.