The major December holidays are behind us. Now you can breathe, right? Unless you need to clean up piles of packaging from presents, clean the house after having guests, wash endless loads of laundry…oh and plan for New Year’s Eve, right? Sometimes we’re so focused on how to manage our stress leading into the holidays that we forget that it doesn’t just end after everyone returns home from their celebrations. For some people, they can feel just as bogged down by their to do list after the holidays as they did before! And with the end of the year looming, who can blame them? So what do we do in order to maintain our sanity and make it through to 2023?
First, make a list. What absolutely needs to be completed before January 1st? If it doesn’t absolutely need to be completed before the end of the year, consider putting it off until after the new year.
Sometimes we feel like we need to get through our entire to do list before the new year begins so that we can start the new year “fresh.“ However, if this comes at the cost of losing sleep, and being extremely stressed, it may not be worth it! Maybe those holiday returns can wait. Or if that’s a big stressor for you, maybe it’s OK to leave the laundry until January 1 or 2nd. Prioritize what will give you the biggest return on the investment of your time and try to get one or two big things done so you can feel accomplished without thinking you need to run yourself into the ground trying to get through your entire list.
Finally, remember that when the new year starts you will still have plenty of things on your to do list to get through and a month from now you will likely hardly remember what you were stressing about today! So take each day in stride and try not to give anything more importance than it deserves.
