The only New Year's resolution PR professionals need

New Year's resolutions seem to have become the nerdy kid that everyone openly scoffs, but secretly admires.
Whether or not you subscribe to the habit of making and breaking (or keeping) resolutions at the beginning of each year, there is one resolution/change/focus/mantra that will help you to extend the relaxed feeling of the break you had over the holidays.

PR is known as one of the most stressful careers, and PR professionals are known for their type-A personalities and workalism. It is because of this combination that the effects of any holiday or break from work don't last very long.

The only resolution that makes sense for PR professionals is to CREATE HABITS NOW THAT WILL REDUCE FATIGUE LATER.

The habits each one of us need to create obviously depends on our job function and approach; mine need to focus on automisation and smart management of routine tasks, as those tend to steal my energy away from the things I'm good at.

Automate
Social media is a necessity for marketers, but usually takes a backseat as it is still viewed as a "nice to have" instead of one of the easiest and cheapest to tools to gain insight from target audiences.

Built-in functionality like Twitter's list feature and Facebook's native post scheduling functionality can go a long way to reduce the time spent managing social media platforms. Third-party apps are also a dime a dozen, and range from simple organising to full-scale intelligent curation and automatic sharing of content.

The lists mentioning these apps and tools are endless, but these are a few of my favourites:

1. The Beginner’s Guide to Putting the Internet to Work for You: How to Easily Save 60 Minutes Every Day
2. Beginner’s guide to Sendible, social media automation, monitoring app
   

For a few tips on how to still keep in touch with your audience while technology does the hard work for you, read this and this.

Delegate
I am fortunate to work with a team that I can trust to take care of both our clients and our brand. Working with a team you CAN trust, and actually ACTING on that trust are two completely different things.

I've found the first step towards proper delegation is to ensure that your expectations have been clearly communicated and understood, and that the necessary training and testing has been allowed. And then, it's all a matter of trust, backing off, and guiding (instead of micro-managing, constantly checking and criticising).

Once you've delegated those things that sap your energy, you might not need a holiday in a hurry again.

Expand
Expand your horizons everyday through reading, listening, exercising, meeting with like-minded people (or those with opposing views) ... or just taking a break from the one-eyed monster sitting on your desk. Perspective lies outside the office walls, and problems viewed from an objective perspective tend to wither away before causing sleepless nights and stressed-out days.

Contract
Success is achieved through focus and consistency. We so easily fall into the trap of trying to be all things to all people, that saying no has become one of the most stressful activities of every day.

Once you have made a decision on what to focus on (whether is be in your private or professional life), a consistent effort in making decisions and accepting tasks that support the focus areas will soon lead to achieving success where most needed, leaving time and energy at the end of each day.

Finish strong
For those of us who holds jobs where multitasking is necessity, doing one thing at a time (and finishing it) is a great chellenge. I will however try very hard this year to do only one thing at a time, and finish it before moving on to the next item on the never-ending to-do list.

Are you brave enough to share the habits you need to create to extend the resting value of this past holiday? Leave me a list in the comment section below if you are!