Christmas hit me early this year. Usually I am a fairly self-motivated person. I don’t need someone else to organise me, and I work perfectly happily setting my own agenda and following it. That’s how it usually is.
Then December hit!
I don’t know if it was that I had to get ready for an early Christmas celebration with some of the family, so did the Christmas shopping early. I don’t know if it was returning to Aldi on December 3 to get an extra Christmas cake to give to someone, only to be told that most of their Christmas stock was sold out and they wouldn’t be getting any more “because it was so close to Christmas”.
Whatever the reason, my brain shut down and my motivation went out the window. It has become a marathon effort to write for my blog, which I normally love to do, and trying to make business plans for next year just seems like a task that is beyond my capabilities. Fortunately I’ve maintained my interest in clients, but not in marketing or any of the other tasks a small business person needs to do.
Am I burnt out? I don’t think so. I still love what I do, I just don’t want to do it NOW. I don’t want to walk into my office in the morning. I don’t want to do my normal tasks. I want to go and buy a coffee, or catch up with a friend, or hop in the pool….anything really except what I’m supposed to be doing!
So in case you also feel like you want to declare that no more work needs to be done this year here is my list of the seven signs you need a holiday.
1. You need a strong good coffee before 9am, and one that you make just won’t do the trick.
2. You can’t remember why you put that message to yourself in your diary, or in fact what that message means. What am I supposed to be doing at 10am? Who cares?
3. You have started 5 jobs by 11am but haven’t finished any of them.
4. By noon you realise you have forgotten to buy a Christmas present for someone who is dropping in next week, and might have a gift for you so you must have one under the tree for them. It’s hard to know what to buy because you haven’t seen them since this time last year. You rush out the door to the nearest shopping centre. At least it is air-conditioned.
5. By 2pm you are back at work, people are asking where you have been and you mutter something about not feeling well.
6. By 2.10 you take a call from the person involved in your 10am diary message, full of apologies but with no real recollection of when you made the appointment, why you didn’t write down the details properly and wondering how you are going to get the work to them that they require before your working day finishes.
7. You don’t get the work finished. You don’t really care. You go home, drained at the thought of having to do it all over again tomorrow.
If you agree with 5 out of the 7, how about we just call it “Christmas”, close our computers and happily float off into holiday mode.
Merry Christmas!
