Routine

The holidays are a time of year when we all can feel overwhelmed, and overextended. There are holiday gatherings, holiday travel (whether you are traveling or your family is visiting you), shopping, holiday services in your local community, and children's school holiday programs, and then the kids are out of school for a week or two or three. 

As always, none of the day to day items fall off of your list. 

So how do you manage when you are out of your routine? 

We take comfort in our routine, don't we? Things happen on schedule, and we can plan "wiggle room" for unexpected things to come up.

So how can you make chaos routine? 

Well for starters, we all sort of have, haven't we? I mean we are far from the days of Leave it to Beaver and Happy Days. The world  moves at a pace faster than ever before and there is no chance of it slowing down any time soon.

So, the holidays are a time to plan for a lot more "wiggle" and a lot less schedule. So, plan for it. Schedule less into your day so that when whose opportunities arise, you have planned for the space to take advantage of them.

Another winning strategy is the buddy system. You remember the buddy system from when you were in school, right? Well this is a little bit different application, but it works basically the same way. 

Say you have to bake cookies for a school event, a cookie exchange, or a family event. I bet at least 1 of your girlfriends, if not more, also has to bake cookies for something at this time of year. So... buddy up! You can get the task done faster, and you'll have more fun. 

How about gift wrapping, or shopping, or ...

I think you catch my drift.