The holiday season tends to be busy for everyone. Even if your business slows down, life can be crazy during the month of December with parties, decorating, errands, baking, and holiday shopping. With some preparation, you can get your event planning business prepped and ready for December so that you can focus less on work and more on life during the holidays.

Here are 3 ways to prepare your business for the upcoming holiday season:

1) Update Your Bookkeeping

Schedule 1-3 hours in your schedule to update your bookkeeping. This could be processing receipts, categorizing transactions, reconciling bank statements, or preparing upcoming invoices. Now may be the time to reach out for help and hire a bookkeeper or accountant to spend a few hours a month getting your financial records straightened up and current. Don’t go into the end of the year with boxes of receipts and unopened bank statements laying in a pile on your desk.

2) Schedule Social Media and Blog Posts Now

Put your social media and blog on auto-pilot for the holidays by scheduling your posts ahead of time. Try out Hootsuite’s free version to schedule posts on up to 3 social media accounts such as Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. Later and Schedugram are paid-for applications to schedule Instagram posts. Buffer is another great option to explore for scheduling social media posts. In about 90 minutes, you can easily have a month’s full of social media and blog posts scheduled. Need blog post ideas? Here are 20 blog topics ideas for wedding planners.

3) Prioritize Tasks

Make a list of everything that absolutely needs to get done with your business in December. This should include client work, business tasks, and marketing initiatives. After you make the first draft of your list, cut it down again to only the ABSOLUTE necessary items that must be done before the end of the year. Once you have this list, put the items in order of priority. When you have office days in December, the very first task you will do in the morning (BEFORE opening your email) is to work on your top priority task. This ensures you are being efficient and working on the priority tasks only.

If you are caught up on bookkeeping, your social media and blog are looking good, and the task list is under control, consider these 6 things do work on to ensure January bookings. If you are tired of the holiday craze, there are many ways you can simplify this time of year.