Good afternoon,
Before I get on to my Christmas planning tips, I wanted to let you know that I will be at the wonderful Wholefood Merchants in Ferntree Gully this Saturday 22nd Oct from 11am - 1pm doing tastings for Adapt Drinks. If you are in the area please pop in and say hi - I would love to meet and chat!
With just under 10 weeks to go, now is the time to create yourself a simple Christmas plan so you can spread the workload for Christmas celebrations across many weeks. Doing a small amount each week is something that your future self will truly thank you for! It will help reduce the stress when it hits the second week of December and you don’t have your head around what is happening for Christmas.
In Australia, not only is December the start of the festive season but it is also the end of the last school term for the year. So that means many end-of-year events, many end-of-season events on top of all the fun Christmas events. Investing some time in planning now means that you can enjoy this time much more, feel less stressed and be more present with your family.
And by creating a simple Christmas plan you can then much more easily delegate tasks to others so you are not left to do all the work yourself. Below is the simple plan I have created for our family this year:
10 weeks to go - Sun, 16 Oct - Create Christmas plan
9 weeks to go - Sun, 23 Oct - Christmas spreadsheets - budgets and gift ideas
8 weeks to go - Sun, 30 Oct - Choose a Christmas theme
7 weeks to go - Sun, 6 Nov - Set up Christmas wrapping box
6 weeks to go - Sun, 13 Nov - Christmas menu planning
5 weeks to go - Sun, 20 Nov - Finalise Christmas present shopping
4 weeks to go - Sun, 27 Nov - Set up Christmas tree and start wrapping presents
3 weeks to go - Sun, 4 Dec - Create Christmas week work plan
2 weeks to go - Sun, 11 Dec - Make food Christmas gifts
1 weeks to go - Sun, 18 Dec - Final check and create Christmas day plan
0 weeks to go - Sun, 25 Dec - Celebrate!
Head to the full blog post here - Creating a simple Christmas plan to reduce the stress - if you are after tips on how to create your own simple Christmas plan plus tips on how to delegate some of the tasks on the list to others in the family.
3 natural remedies for immediate stress relief
And on the topic of stress did you know that about a third of Australians feel under chronic time stress – and women generally feel more rushed for time than men? Since 2001, the annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey of more than 17,000 people has collected information on Australians’ perceptions of time stress or time pressure (this is defined as feeling that there is not enough time to do all the tasks one has to do).
There are many natural remedies for stress relief that can help you reduce your stress levels and you are probably already aware of many of them - time in nature, sleep, yoga, acupuncture, massage therapy, exercise, and meditation. And while these remedies are effective they require us to stop doing what we are currently doing for a period of time and for some even change location.
As noted time or the lack thereof is a stressor in itself, so a remedy that takes time away from us isn’t always manageable in the moment we are feeling very stressed.
So what can we do?
Luckily there are still some very powerful natural remedies for stress relief that you can use in the moment that take very little time and can have a positive effect on reducing how stressed you feel. Head to the blog post to find read what they are and how you can incorporate them easily into your day as needed - 3 natural remedies for immediate stress relief.
Have a great week!
Nic