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Its the end of the year and the pressure is on, demands are high, and youre probably close to the end of your rope as you try to wrap up your remaining projects before the holidays start. If thats you, youre not alone. Holiday stress is very common: In a survey by LifeStance Health, 57% of respondents said they experience stress over the season. But its possible to maintain your energy and momentum and not only get things done but stay engaged and finish strong. Fortunately, there are a few pragmatic strategies to maintain your energy and momentum through the end of the year. 1. Maintain control Youre likely to start feeling out of control. This is because of all the work you must accomplish before the end of the year, all the events you must attend, and all the responsibilities to families and friends for the holidays. Feeling like your work-life balance is out of control can sap your energy and create a barrier to getting things done. This can turn into a vicious circle. Youre out of control, cant get things done, and then feel even more out of control, and the cycle continues. On the other hand, when you feel greater levels of choice and control, youre better able to stay clearheaded, get more accomplished, and feel more satisfied as a result. So how can you feel more in control? First, decide what you must do this year and put off the things that dont need your attention until after the holidays. Be intentional to get things done that will relieve your mind and keep responsibilities from hanging over your head. At the same time, plan for what can be done later on. Additional tactics to take control are deceptively simple. Make lists of what you need to accomplish. Keep a calendar handy so you know whats coming up. When you accomplish things, check them off your list so you feel a sense of completion and progress, or mark the calendar counting the days youve tackled. With all of these, take the approach that works best for you. For some people, its an analog and always-visible to-do list. For others its an app or the use of your systems calendar or planning software. Dont spend a lot of time deciding which to use, just leverage what youre accustomed to and dig in to take control and maintain your momentum for the year. 2. Prioritize With so much coming at you, it can be tough to find the time and energy for everything. The project is due at work, you have to buy a secret Santa gift, and you must figure out what to give your childs teacher for the holidays. Surprisingly, when you remind yourself that you cant do it all, youll actually enhance your well-being. Its a mindset that we can do it all that often leads to burnout and emotional upheaval. By giving yourself permission to choose, rather than having to do everything, you liberate yourself to focus on whats most important. In order to choose well, clarify your values and focus on whats most important to you. For example, completing the project at work is aligned with your value of excellence or standout performance. Contributing to your childs party at school is important to your role as an involved and committed parent. But you might choose to forgo the committee meeting this month or miss the neighborhood cookie exchange because these arent as important to your identity or your priorities. In fact, the LifeStance Health data found that 64% of people would like to skip at least a few of their holiday gatherings. So while many of the meetings or events still matter, some may not rank as highly when you consider that you cant do it all. Do what you can and preserve your energy for the activities that are most important to you. 3. Spend meaningful time with others When things get busy, you may feel like everyone is pulling you in different directions, but our community and relationships are among the most important drivers of well-being. Youll want to maintain connections to maintain your energy. Research shows that strong community and relationships have significant impact on mental, physical, and cognitive well-being. And yet the holidays can be a lonely time. According to LifeStance Health, 51% of people surveyed said they experience loneliness during the holiday season. Reframe the demands you face as opportunities to share meaningful time with others. If youre under pressure to finish the project before the holiday break, appreciate the bonding opportunity with colleagues as you push forward together. If youre holiday shopping with your sister-in-law, appreciate the moments to deepen your relationship. Strive to be fully present with others, no matter what youre doing together. You can also reduce the responsibilities that come with getting together with others. Instead of reading your usual book with your book group this month, get together for conversation without actually reading a book. Or if your singles group normally meets at someones house, get together at a restaurant this month so no one has to host. The bottom line: Adjust your patterns during this time so its less about the demands and more about the connections. 4. Manage your habits Another way to maintain your energy is to manage the small habits that make a big difference in your physical and emotional energy. Get enough sleep. Stay hydrated. Eat healthfully. Move as much as you can. All of these are proven ways to ensure youll be at your best. Also spend as much time as possible in nature, even if the weather is colder. Significant research demonstrates that by spending more time outside, youre able to maintain perspective and rejuvenate for all the responsibilities you face. In fact, nature is a source of micro joy. Part of the reason that nature is so powerfully positive is that it engages your diffuse attention. Youre generally aware of the light, the breeze, or the brisk air. This is in contrast to the focused attention that work or personal commitments require. Research published in Environment and Behavior found that a shift to a more diffuse focus contributes to well-being and renews you for tasks that require more concentration or intensity. At the same time, avoid habits that detract from your well-being. For example, steer clear of doomscrolling or spending too much time online. These activities can have an especially negative impact because of the overwhelm caused from too much bad news; the urgency of most news sources, which creates a sense of worry; and the comparisons we naturally make to others. Instead, put your device aside or set a timer on your system to limit your time on social media platforms or news outlets. This will free you to spend more time with people or in nature. 5. Focus on gratitude Finally, focus on gatitude. When youre consciously grateful, you contribute to your well-being and ensure you can keep going through it all. You have a lot of responsibilities at work, which is a signal that others value your contributions and rely on you. You have gifts to wrap, which is a reflection of all the loved ones youre able to provide for. You have gatherings to attend, which is an indication of how youre connected to your community. Its also powerful to remind yourself that youre not alone. When youre under a lot of pressure, it can be natural to lose a broader perspective or feel like a victim of too much, too fast, all-at-once circumstances. But research experiments have shown that when people remind themselves that others are also going through hard times or similar challenges, they feel greater levels of happiness and well-being and less isolation, according to a study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies. To embrace gratitude, think of two experiences youre grateful for before you go to bed or consider one relationship youre thankful for as you approach each new day. Also remind yourself that youre not alone, and that while you face a ton of demands, others have similar experiences. Focusing here will help you maintain your energy. You can do it Remember: Just do what you can. You dont have to be perfect, and youll certainly miss things or drop the ball sometimes. Be flexible and optimistic with yourself and others, leaving room for things to go well enough, even if they dont meet your ideal. Reduce the pressure on yourself and youll not only get through such a busy time with your energy stores intact, youll also maintain greater joy in the process.
Category:
E-Commerce
When Jon LaMantia, a Long Island-based business reporter, was in journalism school, his professor drilled one rule into his students: you get two exclamation points a year and no more. So if you use them in January, LaMantia recalls being told, you better hope theres nothing to exclaim for the rest of the year. The rule stuck. LaMantia still thinks about that rigid quota today. I use exclamation points all the time in texts and emails. If you dont, the message sounds more stern, he says. But I cant remember the last time I used one in a business article. Strong feelings about the exclamation point arent uncommon. People tend to either love it or loathe it; lean on it constantly, or avoid it religiously. Personally, I use multiple, but at work Ill only use one, says a woman who works in HR at an investment bank in New York City, who wasnt cleared to speak publicly but said she couldnt resist chiming in on this topic. People say Im bubbly and high-energy, so I use them to let my style come through in emailwhen appropriate. A consultant in Ohio, who also asked not to be named, tells me he uses them to lighten the tone of written communication or reduce formality. Others tread more cautiously. I use way too many and then feel embarrassed later on, admits an artist from Brooklyn. A Boston-based consultant says hes begun actively metering his usage to set the right tone. In short, exclamation points matter. They spark surprisingly strong feelings about tone, intention, and even etiquette. But according to new research, they also shape much more than just mood. Warmer, But Less Analytical A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, titled Nice to meet you. (!) Gendered norms in punctuation usage, found that women not only use exclamation points more frequently than men, but that this difference carries real consequencesboth for those writing and for those reading. Across several experiments, participants judged writers who used exclamation points differently across measures that included perceived warmth, power, analytical ability, and competence. Heavy usersa group that overwhelmingly skews femalewere seen as warmer and more enthusiastic, but also as less analytical. The study also showed that women were more likely to think about their punctuation choices, whether to end a sentence with a period or an exclamation point, for example, underscoring the invisible cognitive labor that often shapes womens communication. All of it illustrates how something as small as punctuation can reinforce the subtle forces still underpinning stubborn gender norms and divides both at work, and beyond. Unequal Cognitive Load Cheryl Wakslak, associate professor of Management and Organization at Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and one of the authors of the study, says she was particularly struck by how much mental energy women devote to these decisions. Women are putting a lot of thought into this, she says. On one hand, intentional communication is valuable, she adds, but its also a lot of cognitive energy that men are simply not spending.” Women, she explains, are constantly navigating what she describes as a warmthcompetence tightrope. Theyre worried about not seeming warm, so they use exclamation points to appear warmer. But theyre also worried about not being seen as competent or powerful, and they may worry that exclamation marks undermine that. Men, the research shows, largely dont think about any of that. Another finding that surprised her: the trade-offs of using exclamation points. Heavy users were perceived as more appealing collaborators and more enthusiastic, but also less powerful and less analytical. For me, the most interesting finding, though, was about competence, says Wakslak. We didnt see a clear effect in either direction. That matters to me because, when Im walking that tightrope, Im mostly worried about the competence trade-off, she adds. I dont need to seem powerful in every context, but I do want to seem competent. Still, she acknowledges that in some work environments, being perceived as analytical is crucial. In those situations, based on these findings, a woman might want to avoid using exclamation marks. Perpetuating Stereotypes Asked about the exclamation point research, Elaine Lin Hering, author of Unlearning Silence, a book about verbal and nonverbal communication, says shes not surprised. [The findings] illustrate the downside of the conditioning women have long received and the contorting women do to try to meet expectations. It is simply one of many examples of the double standards women are held to and the tension that women navigate every day, she adds. It’s akin, Hering says, to women being told to smile more in order to appear warmer and more approachableand then finding themselves being taken less seriously because they smile too much. And the issue extends beyond punctuation. Workplace communication norms are typically defined by the groups with the dominant identity. Not just that everyone should talk like a man, but that how people communicate should fit into the stereotypes that the dominant groups have of that other identity, she says. Social norms exacerbate inequality by perpetuating existing stereotypes that the dominant group holds, she explains, like that women are too emotional or Asians are good workers but not leaders or that Gen Z is lazy. So what can be done? As ever, when the problem is rooted in social conditioning, theres no easy fix. But Hering says that, especially in workplace settings, systems can be put in place to help control for biases like the ones that creep in when we read something someones written. We can challenge the social norms and exacerbated inequalities by having clear and consistent criteria for evaluating performance, she says. Research published in 2022, shows that womenbecause of systemic biasare often assessed in workplaces based on their actual performance, while men are assessed based on their future potential creating what the academics dub a gender promotion gap. Having more rigid criteria for assessment can offset that divergence. A wide awareness of the existence of these biases and this conditioning is alsoof coursecritical to making workplaces fairer. And Cheryl Wakslaks coauthor Gil Appel is the first to admit that. Appel, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the GW School of Business at George Washington University, says that spending time researching gender and communication has made himmuch more of a feminist. There are some things that men just dont have to think about at all, and women have to think about all the time, he says. Whether thats to ensure their safety, or whether its to make sure theyre coming across as competent, he adds. They just always have to be thinking. And beyond becoming more feminist, theres one other thing thats changed for Appel since working on the research: I have to admit, he says, I definitely use more exclamation marks now.
Category:
E-Commerce
Its been a tumultuous year for the legacy retailer, shaped by new tariffs, shifting consumer habits, and the constant flip between wartime and peacetime leadership. Macys Inc. Chairman and CEO Tony Spring shares why his team is now on version twenty-seven of the plan, and what it really means to court the next generation of shoppers. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Responsefeatures candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. The Thanksgiving Day Parade, the sprint to Christmas, it’s like your Super Bowl. What’s waw distinctive about 2025? I mean, the economic and shopping environment has been pretty chaotic. I think the news certainly makes things more complicated. I think people are confused. We had a terrific second quarter. We talked about the back-to-school business being pretty healthy, and yet we all see potential storm clouds on the horizon. So we’re trying to be cautiously optimistic You could stay up all night worrying But in reality, our job is to make sure we create a better shopping experience for the customer. There’s plenty of things that are out of our control that we could obsess about, but it really doesn’t satisfy anything or make you feel any better. And for the parade, how do you keep it fresh? Making sure every year the parade has, again, newness: We have partnerships with Disney, Pokemon, Pop Mart, Labubus We want to make sure that whatever is popular and whatever’s interesting weaves its way, not only into our merchandise strategy, but also into an iconic event like the Thanksgiving Day Parade. 32 million people approximately are going to watch it on TV, and we have several million more that come live in person in New York City on that day. Macy’s has an iconic place in American culture, although obviously it hasn’t been immune to the challenges in retail. You launched what you call a bold new chapter after becoming CEO in 2024. It’s showing traction in your financial results, but you’re still sort of in the midst of it. What’s working, what’s not? Well, let me break it into the three parts: The first was strengthening and reimagining Macy’s, and that included closing underproductive stores and betting on our future state stores, so putting more colleagues into the stores, putting new merchandise into the stores. We also improved our digital platform and doubled down on our luxury businesses, which include Bloomingdale’s and Blue Mercury. And then the final part of the strategy is end-to-end operations, and that’s making sure we’re utilizing automation and robotics and AI, and making sure the complexity that might exist in our business doesn’t affect the consumer. Your stores face pressure from everywhere, fast fashion and e-commerce and social shopping and live shopping. How do you think about in-person, human interaction, versus digital commerce? I talk to our team all the time about the word balance, and I don’t think the word gets enough volume or credit There’s some reports out now that the next generation is longing for socialization, and in-person shopping is a big part of what they’re doing together. There is a place, I think, for all these types of businesses, as long as we pay attention to what the consumer wants. Almost 70% of our business still remains in physical retail, which is very consistent with the industry averages. That doesn’t mean we don’t love our digital business. If we were selling paper towels, who wants to go shopping for paper towels? I’d like to have those delivered to my house right before I run out of them. But I think there are other things that are fun to do in person. And by the way, when we have a DJ on a Saturday, when we do bottle engraving, when we, people show how to do flower arranging, you can get people to turn out to the stores because it becomes an extension of what they want to do for the weekend. I think a big part of our bold new chapter is stepping up to the fact that a good retail experience, people are looking for. A bad or mediocre retail experience. People, people can do digital. They don’t need to exhaust themselves with that experience. I want to ask you about planning and decision-making in 2025. One CEO I talked to recently told me that things change so fast that he’s been forced to update his plans as often as weekly. You get new data constantly. I’m curious what you look at and how fluid you have to be with your plans? You have to be very fluid. I mean, to be candid, in the age of tariffs and in the uncertainty of supply chains, plans are the guardrails, and the longer the plan, the less accurate it is. So you do deal with a rolling operating forecast, which is something that we update on a weekly and monthly basis, and that kind of gives us a greater visibility into how to allocate inventory, how to plan our staffing, how to change our marketing, so that we’re doing it in real time, not based on some plan that we developed three or six months ago, which may at this point be somewhat outdated. I think we’re on version number 27 of our forecast and plan, because of the interesting environment that we’re operating in 2025. There’s an analogy that people sometimes use, that sometimes you need a wartime leader and sometimes you need a peacetime leader, and there’s a different strategy for each one of them. And I’m curious whether you feel like for Macy’s, is today wartime or peacetime? And how would you cast yourself in that? I’d like to say it depends on the day of the week you ask me, and I think the challenge for our business is, on Tuesdays, I might have to be a peacetime leader, and on the first day of November, you may need to be a wartime leader. And in the environment we’re operating with, with unexpected tariffs by the middle of the year that didn’t exist at the beginning of the year, there is a lot of wartime philosophy. The same time, we are in a business for the long term. We are not trying to just have a great third quarter. We’re trying to have a great business that lasts decades, if not more. What matters tomorrow is going to be different than what mattered yesterday. I use a phrase, graciousness and kindness don’t cost money. So, how do we make sure that we imbue and express those things on a regular basis? What’s your role when it comes to the Thanksgiving Day Parade itself? Stay out of the way.
Category:
E-Commerce
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