What to Automate During the Holiday Season

No, Virginia, you don’t have to do it all. Let the tech and your organization station do it for you. Here’s what you can automate during the holiday season to make life easier.

When we think of the holiday season, we think of the personal touch. Certainly, we can eliminate some things. Goodness knows there are plenty of things that we don’t actually need to do.

And delegation is the name of the game during a busy season. Let Uncle Joe bring the drinks to the party and send your sons up on the roof to hang the lights. No brainers right there!

But is there anything you can actually automate?

There are some things you can technologically put on auto pilot this season as well as some short term habits you can put in place that will pay off in the long run.

Let’s look at the tech stuff first:

Automate your toilet paper delivery.

I feel like this is most pertinent, especially if you’ll have house guests this season. You do not want to run out of toilet paper.

Luckily, there’s an easy fix. Walmart and Amazon (and a host of other stores I imagine) can put your TP delivery on autopilot, shipping it out to you on a regular basis.

You can “subscribe and save” on any number of household items, so go ahead and do that for auto delivery over the next few weeks. It doesn’t cost extra and will sometimes get you a discount — and you’ll be able to cross off the list the errands required to fetch those necessary household items.

We currently have auto-delivery set up for:

• coffee pods

• protein bars

• protein powder

• vitamins and other supplements

• dishwasher and laundry tabs

• toilet paper

• cleaning supplies (such as sponges, soaps, and detergents)

• dental floss and razor refills

• In years past I even set it up for scotch tape in advance of the gift-wrapping season!

Automate your bill pay.

Don’t let important bills get lost in the holiday shuffle of greeting cards and Christmas catalogs. If you’ve got your bills on autopay, you’ll never be a day late or a dollar short.

I appreciate this for many of my business accounts and have done so for years. I’ve been a little hesitant to do it for our private accounts, but am slowly coming around to seeing how freeing it can be, with a caveat – be sure to follow up on your banking, making sure you’ve paid just what you should and not extra.

Autopilot is only as good as its ability not to crash and burn, so check in with your banking on a regular basis. To “automate” it, make a date with yourself that’s scheduled on your calendar and be sure to treat yourself when it’s complete.

Automate your email communications.

Did you know that you can set up filters and autoresponders within your email client. You can easily tag things that you don’t want to miss or even file it away. Automating my electronic filing has been a game-changer!

Say you or your kids are part of a community production for the holidays. Schedules and other pertinent information are sent out via email. You can set up a filter to apply a colored label to anything relating to that event. That way, you’ll easily see those and never miss a rehearsal!

You can also automatically file Christmas greetings in a folder to respond to in bulk fashion at a time you choose rather than let them pile up alongside the guilt of not responding right away.

Set up a Holiday Organization Station.

While this is not technically “automated”, it will feel like it is when you use it.

Set up a holiday organization station complete with greeting cards and stamps (if you send replies), wrapping paper, stickers, tape, and ribbons — anything that you might otherwise hunt all over the house for, feeling frustrated when you can’t find it.

Then – and yes, this is a little systemate at the same time as automate — as soon as you receive a greeting card or buy a gift, you take it to your HOS. Then you have one of two choices:

1. Wrap the present right away or write a reply to the greeting card. Put it under the tree or in the mail.

2. Leave it there with a clear decision of when you will return to do the above.

While it’s not “automatically” dealt with, you will have everything you need to deal with it right then and there — or in a short while.

After years (YEARS!) of staying up late on Christmas Eve wrapping gifts, I recently implemented “wrap right away” mode and it was amazing! It took so much stress away from the holiday season.

These are just a few ways you can automate things this holiday season. I can’t wait to hear what else you think up!

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