Scheduling Nothing
As we head into the holiday season, I automatically start looking at my calendar and penciling in dates for holiday dance productions, concerts, and parties. And on the outlook this year, I automatically started planning for our holiday open house and the endless family birthdays. But even as I pencil in all of our beautiful and busy occasions, this year I’m going to pencil in something else as well.
Do Not Book
As the world of flexible work schedules take over our lives beyond the regular work day, more people are trying to take back the time they may spend running reports by night by scheduling intentional blanks during the day.
This year I’ve taken the time to block “Do Not Book” times on my work calendar to make sure that I have time to do necessary things that I have crammed in or overlooked before. “Do Not Book” for times I’m doing drop off or pick up at school, “Do Not Book” for an hour in the morning so that I can do yoga, grab coffee with a girlfriend or go for a walk. This practice is new to me because I’ve always been in an onsite office 8 – 5pm job. Working remotely has its perks, but only if you don’t let working from home become living at work. Booking blocks of time for no meetings reminds me that I need to take care of what I need or take a breath.
Blank Space
I love the holidays and the celebrations that go along with them. My first instinct is to fill all the spaces with cookie parties and craft fairs and caroling. But this year I’m going to add in some intentionally blank space. Some of my favorite nights throughout the year have cheer in small doses and small gatherings. An impromptu hot cocoa bar, a Hallmark channel or Home Alone movie night, cookie decorating or a game night doesn’t have to be planned. Maybe it’s easier to gather some of the key things you might like to do over the holiday season and have them on hand for when the mood strikes than to book every occasion to the hilt. It also gives you the space to curl up with a book and a blanket if that’s what the free afternoon calls for.
Schedule yourself some blank space to give room to actually enjoy the holidays this year and get off the hamster wheel of preparing and cleaning up from every big occasion you can squeeze in!
