Every Christmas and New Year I plan to do loads of blog posts, site updates, new designs and general tidying up. And every Christmas and New Year, I make an excuse not to do any more than a blog post or two.

This year, I’ve removed the excuses I usually make and made sure that I’ve balanced work time and downtime reasonably well. It’s especially hard for us people who work full time anyway and then have lots of websites and side projects on the go as well as all the social stuff, travel, house chores and relaxation time…!

‘I’ll just have a couple of days off, and then I’ll start…’

This is always my first excuse. Then before I know it, it’s Christmas and I haven’t done anything. Then I say I’ll do some after Christmas, and yeah…it just doesn’t happen.

This year I nipped it in the bud by making a quick list on Wunderlist in advance. Having an idea of how much work I want to do is the first step to planning how much time I need for it.

‘I want to do ALL THE THINGS!’

Another problem I have is being totally unrealistic about what I can achieve over the holidays. Instead of making a reasonable list and prioritising, I make a list of everything in the world I want to do and then feel deflated when I look at it. And even less likely to come back to it in the new year when I see how much I didn’t get done.

This year I made a very short list of easily achievable tasks, broken down into individual elements so I had the psychological satisfaction of being able to check mini-tasks off and feel like I made a dent.

‘I have so many other things I need to do…’

My websites come last. With everything else going on in my life (and some things demanding insane amounts of attention), that can quickly mean they’re neglected altogether. Planning ahead definitely helps here along with scheduling. I knew I was going to be away for certain days, travelling for so many hours, needing to clean the house etc. It definitely helps to break the free time up into blocks – I tend to opt for morning, afternoon and evening – and assign areas (e.g. websites, friends, house) to them.

‘I’m too tired.’

This is a big one for me because I feel lazy unless I’m doing something productive, but I end up burning out and getting frustrated with my body for being tired when my brain wants to be creating. Although upping my vitamin intake has helped a lot, I do so much stuff that I get very tired and want to crash around the holidays.

To get round this, I combine some of the previous points – planning, not taking on too much, and scheduling. If I tell myself something has to be done be a certain time, I’m much more likely to get it done than if I think, ‘I’ll do it after one more episode of MasterChef’. Because let’s face it, it’s never going to be just one episode.

‘Just one more distraction, and then I’ll do some work.’

For me, these distractions tend to be things around the house that are still productive and need doing, but aren’t related to the work I need to do. Sometimes I’ll combine work with something distracting online, like a game of Settlers of Catan, which can slow my productivity considerably.

This year I’m getting around that by hanging out at Joe’s office, where there are no offline distractions and I’m automatically in work mode. Online distractions are harder to avoid, but I usually sternly tell myself that the sooner I finish, the sooner I can leave. Having a separate workspace outside the house is invaluable.

Like everything else, it’s all about balance and making use of the time available…which is much easier said than done :D If you’ve got any tips for staying motivated over the holidays, I’d love to hear them – drop me a comment!