How to Survive the Holiday Season?

My best tip: Schedule out the work day by day to make sure that you don't overcommit. I always had very detailed work planning docs when I ran my shop - still do. They help keep me on track. And I can look at them in a glance, and see if I'm booked to capacity (or not) whenever the next job comes in.

Stay VERY organized and have enough help!! I use a very detailed spreadsheet that helps me, like Julia, stay out of trouble by overbooking. But having a good, prepared team is essential to get through the holidays...it can become overwhelming VERY quickly!

One more thing, get prepared NOW. Get your boxes built (if you use them), labels ordered, ribbon ordered, and next month, I would start making and freezing LOTS of batter.  The less you have to do during the holidays (i.e. building boxes, running to the store for supplies you've run out of, etc) the better you will feel and sleep at night. Best of luck to you! I hope you have a wildly successful first holiday in business.

So true. Great advice, since the cookies and icing are the focus the "small things" get neglected and when piled up they become the cause of stress. I'm learning this now, my poor husband is too, with the many emergency runs to different stores I send him to.

       

Excellent advice all round, thank you so much.

I do try to keep an organized calendar, I learned the hard way in the month of June, but I am really bad at leaving the little things and then having to make emergency trips. It feels like there's never time to get ahead! 

I wonder if I should hire someone to help over the holidays, I do everything myself right now. 

 

Thank you ladies.  I'm off to order labels and more boxes! :-)