Should I Keep Focused Through the Holidays?

The holidays are a busy time of year for people personally, but businesses (outside of retail) can have a tendency to slip back and take a break. The question is do you take a break during the holidays or do you stay focused? Here’s the flip side to both, figure out what’s right for you and your business and where you are currently to decide whether or not a break or focus is the better answer.

A break through the holidays: pros & cons

People tend to let their guard down through the holidays. They let their normal routine, diet, exercise, and work slack for a bit as the end of the year nears it’s a time that we allow ourselves to indulge in the cycle of the season and resting allows for this sense of completion before we begin a new year.

If you find yourself feeling fatigued, burned out, or just mentally checked out it may do you and your business good to take a break and rest during the holidays. Put your projects and plans on hold and trust that the New Year will bring a renewed sense of energy and focus.

The pros to taking a break is that you could start the year completely refreshed and refocused allowing you to move ahead with greater clarity, vigor, and strength.

The cons could be that the break will escalate and tumble into the New Year. Sometimes when someone takes a break there is a harder time to restart and get back to working on the projects at hand. This could delay New Year plans and leaving you feeling behind the first few weeks of the year. If you need an extended break you may do yourself a lot of good by taking it, just make sure to complete the cycle and plan for a cutoff date to ensure you get back to sharing your business with others.

Staying focused through the holidays: pros & cons

While a physical and mental break can do a lot of good, staying focused and completing projects from 2009 can also be extremely beneficial. Since the last few weeks of the year are pretty quiet as far as meetings, appointments, and scheduled events it could be an excellent time to ramp up your focus, get things completed and put away so you can start 2010 with a clean slate and feeling completely caught up and ahead.

If you’ve got the energy to keep moving forward and find yourself excited at all the white space on your calendar, it may just be the perfect time to wrap things up and stay focused. When the New Year rolls around things will pick up rapidly as the majority of people will be getting started again.

The pros to staying focused include a jump start on 2010, feeling complete with 2009 projects, cleaning your slate, getting organized, and going into 2010 with a bang!

The flip side, or the cons are that you could risk burning out and when everyone else is rearing to go in January you could be needing a break. It’s important that if you push through and stay focused during the holidays you still allow yourself the time to reflect on the successes of 2009 and feel complete with the year end. Be sure not to push yourself, instead just stay focused, work lighter and more determined days  seeing as how you’ll have less distractions coming in!

Whatever you do, enjoy the holiday season and start 2010 with whatever choice that feels right to you!