Meagan’s Holiday Help, Day 7: Plan to finish what you started.

All month long, I’ll be sharing daily pick-me-ups, tips, and doses of inspiration to help us all find perspective during the month of December. We invite you to check back daily for these mini pep-talks as we prepare for a very unusual holiday season. –Meagan

For the past few days, we’ve been talking about scaling back to-do lists to make room for spontaneous fun. But what if spontaneity isn’t a struggle for you? If you’re like me, you may be so open to spur-of-the-moment adventure that you never get around to some of the stuff on your list you’d really like to do.

If you also struggle more with detail planning than perfectionism, it’s likely that you still have things on your to-do list that you haven’t even gotten started on yet. With 18 days left until December 25, you aren’t doomed – but you will likely need to re-focus and make a plan to pull them off.

I know, you’d love to drop everything to run across town to check out the holiday display you just saw someone raving about online. But if your to-do list is ambitious, first try planning out the next few steps you’ll need to move you toward your original goal: for example, if you plan to send homemade gifts to far-flung relatives, set aside a day to make them, a day to box them, and a day to ship them. Try working backward from your “deadline” and plan out the steps you’ll need to pull it all together. (And if this plan involves shipping, don’t forget to give yourself extra wiggle room.)

Free spirits don’t always love being fenced in, but nothing feels better to an big-picture thinker than actually pulling off an ambitious dream. So give yourself the gift of a solid, workable plan that will make it possible to knock at least one of those optimistic goals out of the park. Then sit back, pour a cup of celebratory cocoa, and follow that fun wherever it takes you.

REFLECTION: If you struggle with follow-through when it comes to lofty goals, ask yourself: which activities on my holiday to-do list are my highest priority? What steps can I take today to start moving toward pulling them off? What days can I set aside to execute each part of the plan?