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Holiday parties, gift buying, school festivities, visiting relatives, sending out cards, holiday traditions… There’s nothing like the holidays to throw the precarious balance of work, family and life out of whack. Even without the holidays, daily life is a race against time between work, school, the kids’ activities, family activities, time with the spouse, time with friends and oh yeah, that little necessity called sleep. As moms, as CEOs of our households and as women, we feel like we have to do it all, are responsible for doing it all and most of the time, we do do it all. But throw in the holiday season and how can we manage to do everything we want to do as well as everything we have to do during this exciting and magical time of year?

Delegate & Outsource Your Tasks & Chores

Just like corporations, organizations and even parents’ clubs, we household CEOs have to delegate and outsource. I’ve always been a big fan of both delegating and outsourcing, but I readily admit, it’s not that easy to let go of the responsibility, to let someone else see things through and believe that things will be done in the way we want. After all, how many of us still do most of the housework because our husbands just do it all wrong (i.e., not the way we want)? Why not instead train a household assistant to do the housework to our standards?

How to Start Outsourcing Your To-Do’s

The holidays are a perfect time to start pushing out and assigning some of the work to others and making more time for yourself and your family. When you start to outsource some of the to-do’s on your list, some things to think about include: What task or part of this task can someone else do and what do I really need to do? How much time will this take me and what could I be spending that time doing instead? For instance, I know that I will have to make a list of family members and friends I want to give presents to and even come up with some options or at least their interests and likes/dislikes. But instead of scouring the web or spending weekends at the crowded mall finding and buying gifts, and then wrapping and sending them, I could hand that off to an assistant and instead spend the time with my family and go ice skating or see the Nutcracker.

What Tasks To Outsource

There are fairly common, discrete tasks that can outsourced, such as gift buying and wrapping, addressing holiday cards, post office runs, travel arrangements for your family or visitors and hotel and dinner reservations. There are also bigger, daunting tasks such as getting the house ready for parties and out of town guests that can also be parsed out and tackled by others. Someone else can hang the holiday lights and decorations, clean the house, tidy up, wash the windows, clean the carpet, prep for and serve food and drinks at the party and clean up afterwards. Just think, you could actually enjoy the party and your guests instead of worrying if your guests need their wine glasses refilled!

Finally, there are everyday household tasks that can be outsourced, apart from the holidays, but which tend to fall behind especially during the holidays, such as housecleaning, laundry, dishes, tidying up toys, and yard work.

How To Find Someone To Outsource To

While the benefits of off-loading some of your tasks to someone else is invaluable, it can be very time consuming to find a good assistant or any service vendor for that matter. And once you find someone, managing the relationship(s) can also take time. Personal concierges are like personal assistants, but better in that they will cater to your needs and wants with a high level of customer service and attentiveness. There are also new companies, home concierges, that will take care of all your home and personal needs and services. You can simply Google phrases such as “personal concierge,” “home concierge,” or “lifestyle management,” along with your geographical location. Keep in mind that you’ll want to make sure that the company you choose is licensed and insured and that the people coming into your home have passed a rigorous screening process, possibly even a criminal background check. After all, you’ll want to be able to trust the people you invite into your home - your sanctuary - even those who are going to help you.

We all have a limited amount of time. It’s just a matter of allocating that limited time so that we can find a balance in it all for work, family, friends and hobbies and to enjoy the little moments of life and the magical moments of the holidays.