Cosy Christmas Plan-Along Day 1 | Episode 133

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In this episode, I share day one of the Cosy Christmas Plan-Along: get a birds eye view. You can listen to the episode below or keep scrolling to read the key takeaways from today.

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Day One

  • Decide what is your “Christmas” season. You might not celebrate Christmas and that is fine, you just need to pick when your busy season is and put a start and an end around it. What I share these next 5 days are tips for short bursts of busyness – they’re not for normal everyday although you can apply some of this to non-busy seasons seasons too.
  • You might be thinking all of your seasons are busy and this probably true, but Christmas usually brings a lot of extras with it; extra shopping, extra spending, extra events. There is just more to do and so going into it with a plan will help make sure you don’t leave yourself until last.
  • My Christmas season runs from the end of November until the first week of January. Your might just be from the 12th – 31st December or maybe it’s from the 20th November – 7th January. It doesn’t matter when or how long, just make sure that it is what is usual for you.
  • Next, look at all the events happening in that period and put them in your calendar now. It doesn’t matter what kind of calendar you use just get them out of your head on onto “paper”. Events might be your works Christmas party, family visiting, the day your kids finish school, a friends Christmas get together, Christmas shopping day, the school Christmas play, Christmas jumper day, etc.
  • Anything that you know that is definitely happening and will take time out of your day, put it in your calendar. If there is something that you know is happening but not sure exactly when, just pencil it in for now finding a space for it but know that you can always change it later.
  • Even things that might happen at the same time every year or things you don’t think you will forget, still put them in because it will help later on this week when you are planning when you will fit your hobbies in. It’s so helpful to have a birds eye view of how much time you will actually have instead of trying to guess.
  • I also like to include things that I do at Christmas that I don’t do any other time of year. These aren’t really events or “to-do’s” but might be more fun things. One thing I love to do just before Christmas is take an evening to myself to bake cookies. This goes in my calendar because I need to make sure I have the ingredients, the kids are in bed a little earlier and I don’t plan anything else that night, etc.
  • This kind of leans into planning hobbies which we will talk more about as the week goes on, however, if it is something you know you do every year and it isn’t a normal everyday hobby (such as cross stitch) it can go in your calendar now.

And that is it for today! This might seem easy, but I want you to really dive into this and try and get as much as you can into your calendar (digital, paper, a list, it doesn’t matter) so that you can better see where you will get time for yourself.

Happy planning!

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