This post is part of a series – “31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas”. You can read all the posts in the series here. And to make sure you don’t miss a post you can subscribe to have every post delivered to your inbox, or follow me on facebook.
Yesterday we talked about having gathering all your dates, activities, Christmas parties on a central calendar to help you stay organized for the upcoming holidays. Which is an absolute necessity – but I think you also need to make a detailed to-do list too.
Because if not, this is what happens… the night before your daughter’s Christmas party at school she reminds you that she needs 2 dozen cupcakes at 9 pm. after the local grocery store is closed. and you are already in pj’s. and you have no cake mix in your pantry or your son reminds at 10 pm you that his band Christmas party is tomorrow and he needs a white elephant gift and leaves you scrounging through the yard sale pile looking for something he can bring. I think this is where a lot of my stress happens – I have everything laid out on a calendar – party on Saturday, church program on Sunday, SS Christmas breakfast on Sunday – but the details such as clean house for party, wrap white elephant gifts, prepare 2 dishes, bring 2 dozen cookies for church program, bring a breakfast dish for SS – those get forgotten about until last minute. When I should have put them on a to-do list throughout the week – Monday buy groceries and pick up supplies for all things that week, Tuesday – find/wrap white elephant gifts/teacher gifts for Friday party, Thursday – clean house for party, etc. The DETAILS can cause a lot of stress unless we plan ahead!
Am I the only one? (Please don’t tell me that.)
So I will be printing and using a more detailed planner/to-do list along with my calendar to use for the months of November and December!
Here’s some you could use.
This hourly printable from Crazy Little Projects
Or a daily planner from Crazy Little Projects.
Money Saving Mom has some customizable daily dockets here that you can print.
And Organized Home has several free printable planning/calendar/to-do lists on their site too.
Do the details and all the little… cookies for this, gift for this, casserole for this cause you stress during the holidays? How do you manage it all?
Did you hear me? That was me snorting as I read about “scrounging through the yard sale pile” for a white elephant gift. It’s funny when someone else writes about your life. My go-to wrapping for these last minute gifts has been…wait for it, a plastic Target bag. I tie the handles in a bow -so original.
My holiday stress is clearly connected to not planning out these little details in my day.
LOL! oh you and me both! What’s bad is the white elephant gift we received last year is usually IN that pile – LOL!
Since I work with people who have Executive Functioning struggles — brain-based troubles with distractibility, hyperfocus, making decisions, sequencing & prioritizing (attentional regulation) — I STRONGLY recommend paper calendars for all of my clients and students. to help them avoid losing hours to the “while I’m at it”s — like a “quick” check of email, Facebook, Pinterest — and the ever-present tweaking of technology.
Not that they all heed my advice, but however they track, I agree TOTALLY with your assertion that both a calendar *with* a list of tasks ALSO entered into said calendar are pretty much essential to keep from drowning – or flailing around practically forever, at the very least :).
I back-linked this post to ADD and Christmas Too (left permalink as web address). Hop over and take a look – and leave me a comment to tell me if you are AT ALL interested in guest posting the organization article I mention in the post.
After all, we still have to take it all DOWN (eventually ::grin::)
Happy/Merry EVERYTHING!xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
– ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder –
“It takes a village to educate a world!”