Simplify Your Holidays: Part 1

Created by Rose while singing Christmas Songs

The holiday season often comes with endless mental checklists. Shopping, baking, decorating, parties - it can quickly become overwhelming. This year, take control of your holiday prep using a Prioritization Matrix.

Learn how with this video:

This simple prioritization tool allows you to map out your holiday tasks based on two key factors:

• Joy - How much joy does this activity bring to you?

• Difficulty - How time consuming or stressful is this to complete?

With these two axes mapped, you can divide holiday tasks into four quadrants and determine how you want to tackle them:

1. Celebrate: These are the activities that bring you lots of joy, and are also easy to do. These are what should occupy most of our time.

2. Delegate: These activities bring you less joy, but are really easy to do. So why not bring in some help? This could be something you have your partner or children handle, or even hire someone to do it for you (if feasible).

3. Contemplate: These activities bring you alot of joy, but are complicated to do. So you you need to contemplate how to simplify these activities and bring them down into the Celebrate quadrant.

4. Eliminate: These are activities that not only bring you little joy, they are also difficult to do. So why do them at all? Consider getting rid of these activities this year.

The matrix gives you clarity on where to invest your time and energy. You can let go of stressful tasks that don't align with your holiday priorities.

For example, if baking 10 different cookie recipes feels draining, narrow it down to just your family's top 2 favorite cookies. Or if attending every holiday party is exhausting, politely decline invitations that matter less.

The matrix empowers you to shape the holiday season based on your personal goals and limitations. You get to decide what's essential versus excessive. Taking back this control reduces stress.

Follow these steps to create your own Importance/Difficulty matrix:

1. Brainstorm a list of holiday tasks

2. Map each task on the matrix based on joy and difficulty

3. Categorize tasks into the four quadrants

4. Prioritize/simplify/delegate/eliminate accordingly

5. Reflect on how your holiday prep feels with this clarity

While the holidays can't be entirely stress-free, strategic planning goes a long way. Use a Prioritization Matrix to help design a holiday season that feels purposeful, balanced, and most importantly - joyful for YOU.