"Holiday Survival Guide: When Work & Personal Lives Collide" (Creator's Block, Ep. 53)

A few times a year, the entire IMPACT team -- hailing from all across the country -- descends upon our home office in Wallingford, Connecticut, for an entire week of meetings, team-building, and sprawling across every square inch of available desk space to get work done.

Last week was one of those weeks, which meant it was the first time Jessie-Lee, Marcella, and I were in the same place, at the same time. 

Marcella, Jessie-Lee, and me! Just look at us. We're delightful.

But during the "most wonderful time of the year," weeks like this can be a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, getting to be together in person does wonders for collaboration. (Oh, and you get a chance to have those big conversations that don't occur organically since typically you aren't in the same physical space as your colleagues.)

On the other hand, the last month of the year -- whether you're in office or working from home -- is always a mad race to the finish. 

The holidays (and vacations) are looming. Budgets are closing. Projects are wrapping. Quarterly objectives are sunseting.

Even for the most seasoned and proactive planners, no checklist or spreadsheet can save you from the fact that, for many professionals, December's trademark is the perfect storm of every conceivable deadline is converging all at once.

How do you survive the end-of-year holiday crunch? And should you unplug once it's all said and done?

Listen in, because we've got our battle-tested recommendations to help you get yourself across the 2017 finish line, sanity intact -- and, we had a very special surprise guest drop in at the very end of the episode! 

Listen to the Episode

What We Talked About

• The balancing act between taking care of yourself and cutting yourself some slack, and still being a reliable team player.
• The importance of making the working vacation vs. unplugged vacation decision in advance.
• How we each define being unplugged, and whether being 100% unplugged is worth it.
• Should you treat every day like it's the day before vacation?
• Our best piece of advice for surviving your workload before the holidays.

Resources We Discussed

• Boomerang for Gmail app
• IMPACT MarketHer Podcast
• Windows 95 Guide with Matthew Perry & Jennifer Aniston

We Want to Hear from You!

First, subscribe to Creator's Block on Apple Podcasts. Second, have a question or an idea for a future episode of the podcast? Let us know! 

• Creator's Block: Twitter, Instagram
• Jessie-Lee: Twitter, Instagram
• Marcella: Twitter, Instagram
• Liz: Twitter, Instagram 

Or, you can leave us a comment below! Until next week...