How to Get Ahead of the Competition During the Holidays

The holidays can be an exciting time both personally and professionally. The holidays season can also bring about a great deal of stress as travel, family commitment and end-of-the-year preparations can make getting ahead at work a difficult task for many. The good news is, there are ways that you can get a leg up on the competition and try to get ahead of your competitors this holiday season. With so many people struggling to stay on task during the holidays, there is no better time to try and not only catch up to the competition but get ahead during a time when most are falling behind. Keep these tips in mind during the holiday season and you just may find yourself pulling ahead instead of falling behind during this most busy time of the year.

Stick to Your Normal Habits

The holidays are often a time when people top sticking to their normal habits and start changing their habits to adopt to the changes this stressful time of year. This is precisely why so many people unfortunately abandon many of their good habits such as exercising and eating healthy. If you want to get ahead of your competition this holiday season, then stick to your normal habits. This means every habit, no matter how big or how small. Whether it is getting up at a certain time, exercising before work, eating a healthy lunch, staying 15 minutes after the work day ends, or anything in between, it is important that you do your best to stick to your normal habits. While everyone else starts to fall behind, you will keep being as productive as ever.

Set Your Goal Timeline With Holidays in Mind

If you want to prevent yourself from falling behind during the holidays, you need to be realistic with how you schedule things. As you create your work timelines, make sure that you do so with the holidays in mind. You need to be honest with yourself. While you may think you can get work done with relatives in town, this isn’t always the case, you may need to tweak your expectations of what you can reasonably get done. If you try to over schedule yourself or create an unrealistic timeline, it can only put you behind even more causing you to rush and become frustrated with work. Be realistic with your holiday timeline and you can avoid setting seriously behind.

Don’t Use the Holidays to Catch Up. Use Them to Get Ahead

If you are one of the many people who has a few extra days off around the holidays, then you may want to use this time to catch up on work. Before you get ahead of yourself, stop and reassess what you want to spend this time on. Instead of viewing it as a time to catch up on work you have fallen behind on, try to reframe your way of thinking. Instead, use the holidays as a time to actually get ahead. By simply rewording your sentiment and thinking of this time as an opportunity to get ahead instead of catching up from being behind, you can go a long way in pulling ahead of the competition.

The holidays doesn’t have to be a time where you fall behind on work. If you take the time to reassess the way you think about the holidays and stick to these little tips, you can actually use this time of year to get ahead of your competition and find the success you have been looking for.