How I Beat Holiday Stress
Hey, Friend! So here we are….one week until Christmas Eve! Are you ready?
I’m so excited for today. It’s the last day of school for my kids, and tonight we are taking them to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert!!
TSO has long been one of our favorite musical acts, and we can’t wait to share the magic with our kids. You’ll often find us listening to their music this time of the year, as our go-to holiday songs.
How about you? This is the last time we’ll connect until after the new year. I’d love to hear all about your plans for celebrating.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Vitalia Inc team! We’ll see you next year!
Do you love the hustle and bustle of the holidays, or does it feel overwhelming? Do you live for the long list of work responsibilities, social parties, and family get-togethers, or do you grit your teeth to get through the day to day?
It certainly can feel like a “silly season” with all the demands and commitments, parties and obligations, and the challenge of balancing work and personal life.
Here at Vitalia Inc, we may not be immune to the craziness of the holidays, but we do take care to ensure we are utilizing our systems and best practices to keep all of our projects and tasks on track.
To keep everything together and on-track, I have always found organization to be key. We focus on prioritizing and communication to make sure all tasks are completed on schedule and that all stakeholders are aware of where we are at with a project.
Here is a more specific list of my to-do’s in December.
Business:
1. Fabricate and install December projects. (Our design clients know dates and times). This sounds very put-together. The reality is much messier. It often means that workroom’s lights are still on in the wee hours of the night. And I personally start sewing (now that’s scary – 😱)
2. Plan out January work in terms of appointments and production orders.
4. Defer revenue and load up on expenses. This is the time to purchase plane tickets for conferences next year; buy extra supplies like lining, printing paper, or stamps. This year, we ordered some new sewing machines to keep our workroom production going strong and efficient into 2022.
5. Notice, I don’t have anything here about goals for next year. Honestly, I’m just trying to hang on and not completely lose my marbles. Anything that’s not immediately related to survival (like goals, ha!), is deferred to January 😊
Personal
1. Decorate the tree – my favorite day of the year!
2. Go through gift list. I have a spreadsheet from previous years (yes, I know, I love my spreadsheets). I try not to forget people like my handyman, cleaning woman, and recycling guys
3. Do something special with family. This year, it’s a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert!
4. Take some time off. Our last installation is usually before Christmas. We don’t schedule any installations between Christmas and shortly after New Year’s. It’s time for my sewing staff to rest from long hours of fabricating. It’s a time for my people to not think about opening packages and measuring windows. It’s time for me to not think about the daily hustle.
This year, I am grateful to be able to share that I am feeling significantly less stress and pressure than the past couple of years.
This is in part because of my amazing team – what a difference it makes when you have such great support and you don’t have to do it all yourself!
And a silver lining: We have less installs than we usually do this time of the year, due to some project delays. So while we are certainly busy, we’re not quite “pull-your-hair-out” crazy.
I’m fortunate and grateful to have such an incredible staff to help me work towards my goal of providing the very best custom luxury window treatments and soft furnishings to the talented interior designers in Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, and beyond.
