3 simple ways to make the final quarter feel more manageable

October through to December can be especially busy for creative and advertising businesses.

Campaign deadlines gather pace, while clients want projects completed before Christmas. Planning for the new year also begins while the current one is still demanding your attention. As the workload increases, the line between working time and personal time can become increasingly fuzzy.

You may find yourself checking emails over dinner or using evenings to catch up on admin, while an unfinished to-do list follows you around long after you have closed your laptop.

While a VA like me can’t take every demand off your plate, I can share a few small habits that may help you protect your time and preserve some headspace during the final push of the year.

Protect some thinking time

When work gets busy, it is easy to become so preoccupied with getting ‘the thing’ done and off your plate that you leave yourself very little time to think about how best to approach it. It’s a very reactive way of working, and it isn’t sustainable.

Something that has worked brilliantly for me is blocking out dedicated thinking time.

You don’t need to set aside hours and hours. Start by blocking out a dedicated hour each week, which you can use to plan and review your priorities for the week ahead. Put it in your calendar and treat it as you would a client meeting, rather than moving it whenever something else appears.

During that hour, you can work out what genuinely needs your attention, but it can also help you gain clarity on any problems you’re trying to solve.

Even one protected hour can help you make clearer decisions before your diary fills up. It also gives you a chance to spot potential problems earlier, while there is still time to deal with them calmly.

Snooze emails that don’t need an immediate response

A busy inbox creates its own form of pressure. Some messages can be dealt with quickly, while others need more thought or uninterrupted time.

Those “I’ll deal with this properly later” emails are especially easy to lose. They sit in your inbox while newer messages arrive, adding to the feeling that you have forgotten something important.

Snoozing a message removes it temporarily and brings it back to the top of your inbox later. This can free up some headspace while you’re dealing with other tasks and messages.

Here’s how to do it:



• In Gmail, hover over the email, select the clock icon and choose when you want it to return.
• In the new Outlook for Windows or Outlook on the web, right-click the message, select Snooze and choose a suitable time.

This works well when you know you can’t take useful action yet, but the message is important and you don’t want to forget about it.

It’s a great way to keep things under control without the message occupying space in your inbox or your mind.

Make your phone less tempting in the evening

Checking your phone can become an automatic habit after a demanding day. One notification leads to an email, which leads you into another app, and suddenly a big chunk of your evening has disappeared.

Bedtime settings can create a useful boundary by reducing interruptions and making your screen less visually appealing. I absolutely love this feature on Android.

On Android, simply go to Settings, then Digital Wellbeing and parental controls, followed by Bedtime mode. You can create a schedule and, depending on your device, turn on greyscale under the bedtime screen options.

A black-and-white screen is less inviting than colourful app icons. Combined with fewer notifications, it can help you break the habit of picking up your phone without thinking. It may also help you wind down, as the screen becomes less stimulating.

There are settings that allow selected contacts to reach you too, which means you don’t have to worry about missing any genuinely important calls or messages.

The equivalent on an iPhone is Sleep Focus, which allows you to schedule a period with fewer distractions and choose which people or apps can still notify you. I haven’t tried this myself, as I don’t have an iPhone, but I’ve been told it does the job!

You may be surprised by how much less frequently you check your phone when there is nothing flashing or pinging for your attention.

That creates more room for proper relaxation and winding down, rather than allowing work to creep further into your evening.

Small changes can create valuable breathing room

These are all small, practical things you can try when work starts to feel particularly busy. They can help reduce avoidable distractions and protect a little more of your personal time when the pressure builds.

Choose one that feels realistic and try it for the next week. You could protect an hour for thinking, snooze emails until you can deal with them properly or create a firmer boundary around your phone in the evening.

Your time and headspace are precious, particularly during the busiest months of the year. Just a few simple adjustments can help you finish the year feeling calmer and more in control.