Organizing Business & Holiday Preparations

When you have a business, sometimes it’s difficult to organize your own holiday preparations so that one or the other (business or family) aren’t neglected.  You must keep your business going to bring in the income. 

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Yet family expect holiday preparations, festivities and attendance at various activities throughout December.

• Make a list of what you need to do, businesswise and holiday wise.
• Some of these might overlap as you make business holiday preparations, too.
• Can you involve your family in some of your business festivities?
• If you have employees, have them give you a list beforehand of times they need off.  Thus you’re less likely to have last minute requests from them.
• Try to plan ahead as much as possible, so that you complete holiday business orders in plenty of time.
• Have a cut-off deadline for special orders. 
• Try to figure how much time your orders will take so that you’re not working at the last moment on them or infringing on family holiday time. 
• Emergencies do occur, so you can’t always stick to a strict schedule.  So you do need some flexibility.

What tips do you have for organizing your holiday business and family schedules?