Office Organizing Ideas for the Holidays: Coordinating Schedules and Vacations

With people taking time off from work, and needing their duties covered, the holiday season can be one of the more stressful times of the year. 

But, take it from our NYC Professional Organizer, it doesn’t have to be that way.

What’s required – no surprise here – is planning! And informing your planning there needs to be vision and the principle of working smarter, not harder.

Most of us feel that we have wasted a little bit of time in office meetings on occasion. But scheduling a planning meeting early in the season is one of our essential office organizing ideas for the holidays – and one that will save you time in the end.

Those who will be covering the work of the people taking time off need to meet, and the people taking time off need to be involved.

The first of my first office organizing ideas for making sure the holiday season runs seamlessly: Determine at the meeting which of the tasks normally done are musts. Then decide who’s doing them during the time the person who usually handles them will be away. There are inevitably a few less pressing tasks that can be handled by the person going away either before or after their badly needed break. Identifying and delegating the essential tasks and setting aside those that can be more flexible helps to reduce stress on all sides during this busy time of year!

Now comes the second of my office organizing ideas for this crucial period during the year: write down, preferably in an electronic schedule that everyone has access to, the tasks being covered and who is covering them, and get this done at the first (and preferably only) meeting divvying up tasks.

Again, this is all about working smarter – not harder! As an NYC Professional Organizer, I tell people this every day. You don’t have to do more, you just have to have a good sequence for what you do, one that serves both you and those around you consistently.

OK, so now you have the tasks that need to be covered divvied up – what next?

My suggestion is that the tasks being covered get done first each day. Why? Because, even with the best of intentions, by leaving these hanging around, they have a funny habit of not getting done.

What you’ll find, and this is hard-won experience talking, is that by doing the tasks being covered during the first hour of business each day (to the extent that they can), you will free up mental space to concentrate on your own duties during the rest of the day.

In other words, you’re not going about your daily tasks anxious about remembering what you’re supposed to do for the other person – because you’ve already done those things. This really works!

And it’s exactly what your NYC Professional Organizer means when I say: work smarter, not harder! Happy holidays!