I’ll let you into a little secret - no one’s Christmas actually looks like their Facebook post would have you believe. Most of us are just grateful we’ve managed to serve something resembling a dinner and not poisoned anyone in the process.

There are ways to make Christmas really special without all the stress, by following these few simple tips:

1. Organise your ‘to do’ list into categories to help you focus on what’s really important. For example have ‘Must do’, ‘Want to do’ and ‘Nice to do’ actions and then you can sort and focus yourself.
2. When buying presents, think about it from the receivers perspective not what you think they need. Successful present buyers don’t buy presents they think people will need or that they would like them to have, they buy presents the receiver loves or didn't even know they’d love. Stand in their shoes and think about it before writing the list.
3. Stick to your budget. Post Christmas money troubles can bring people down to earth with a bang and can leave you struggling for months afterwards, so design a sensible budget and stick to it. There are lots of really wonderful inexpensive things you can do, the value of a present is not an indication of love, it’s the love you put into it that counts.
4. Give people roles. This is linked to 1, consider who you’ll have around and can you give them jobs or responsibilities that will help you and fulfil their wish to help. Think about what they might like to do. For example who is on drinks duty? who is organising the TV schedule? who is the sous chef (or clearer upper)? If people have roles everyone feels involved and you can relax knowing that certain tasks are under control.

Karen and John’s award winning book Time Mastery; Banish Time Management Forever makes a perfect stocking filler for the busy person in your life. Available from Amazon or directly from Monkey Puzzle.