The end of the year is always epically stressful. Every night seems to be some form of “let’s have an end of year catch up!” or Christmas party, there’s copious amounts of alcohol flowing which can lead to, erm, dusty mornings – not to mention work is usually full on and v v v v intense. Oh, and Christmas shopping. DEATH.
It’s definitely the one time of year when you just can’t handle additional stress in your life. So we’ve cooked up some ingenious tips and tricks to help you make your life a not-shithole.
PREP YOUR BREKKIES
Skipping breakfast will leave you a grumpy, hungry monster. But getting up early enough to have it at home is really unlikely during December. Haha, funny joke! Instead, make some easy to eat brekkie foods on the weekend, like savoury muffins or mini frittatas (literally frittata in muffin containers).
Alternatively, buy cereal or porridge and some milk and store it in the work fridge. Just whatever you gotta do to ensure your morning is literally getting dressed and running out the door.
USE THOSE WEIRD ORGANISING APPS
Some people will actually look at a diary daily. If you are not that kind of people, there are apps and gadgets around you that can literally turn your morning from a hot mess into organised bliss. Mates, Siri is USEFUL. Ask it what you’ve got on for the day or what the weather is instead of almost dropping your phone in the loo while you google that shit.
PLAN YOUR OUTFIT THE NIGHT BEFORE
Finding *that* shirt at 7.58am? Get fucked. Prep your outfits the night before, all week. In fact – go one step further and iron everything you’re thinking of wearing that week on Sunday, so you don’t have to run around the house in your undercrackers doing emergency straightening of collars and pleats at 7.50am.
LISTEN TO WEIRD MEDITATION MUSIC AT WORK, IN THE CAR, WHEREVER
Some days in Dec are actually traumatic. The carpark during last min Xmas shopping, for example. You’ve got people coming at you from all direction, and everyone’s a dickhead.
As odd as you’ll feel doing it, meditation music (that weird, soothing stuff full of dolphin calls and the sound of rain) is definitely calming, it works as background noise that won’t disrupt your train of thought or driving abilities, and trust us when we say it’ll calm you right down. Laughing? Yeah, yeah. Fuck off and just try it, OK?
MUTE YOUR GROUP CHATS SOMETIMES
Group chat convos that are literally just everyone talking absolute trash are the best – at the right time. On a stressful work day, they’re just extra noise you don’t need.
The convo will still be there at lunchtime, or at 6pm or whatever, so if you’re inner stress level is rising hard at every pop-up, mute it for a bit and watch your focus hone in and heart rate lower.
HAVE DEDICATED EMAIL-CHECKING TIMES
This is one loads of life coaches swear by. If you notice your email checking for one day, you’ll see numerous moments where you were completely focused on a preso you were making or (for us) a feature you were writing, only to go off on an annoying tangent responding to something that absolutely could have waited an hour or two.
No one ever emails expecting an immediate response. Email is not the platform for that – that’s what ringing you 400 times is for. Even if you limit your checks to on the hour, every hour you’ll find you get way more done in a day, with way less of a cluttered brain.
LEARN TO SAY NO
Stop feeling bad for saying ‘no’ sometimes! You do not need to be at every catch-up or event. Make sure you have at least one, ideally two weeknights to yourself in December, because if you burn the candle at both ends purely out of FOMO or feeling obligated, you’ll be a shell of a human no one wants to be around or worse – you’ll just get bloody sick and won’t make anything, let alone the stuff you don’t wanna go to but feel you have to.
