The Holidays are coming!

I know, it's only June, but for me, this is the time when I start thinking about the holidays and how far behind I am for them.  I am going to be getting back into craft shows for the holiday season, which means I need to have my stock ready for showing by the end of September.  Yes, it's only the middle of June, but as anyone who's ever crocheted knows, these things take time.  So, I need to be thinking about Halloween stock, now, and Thanksgiving stock within the next few weeks.  Christmas should be well under way by mid July. And applications need to be submitted for fall and winter craft shows.  But before I can even start all of that, I have to take care of some outstanding business.  What outstanding business you ask?  Well, the orders that have been sitting on the back burner.  The orders that came in from friends and family, people who were close to me, and did not have a required due date.  They were the orders that I was told not to rush on, there was no hurry.  So, when the requests came in I said "I'm going to finish this urgent order, then get to those." But before that could happen, another urgent order came in, or another craft show came up and I had to frantically work on that.  And now, I have a list of projects half started or not started at all that need to be finished. I won't start the next session of craft shows with these projects hanging over me.  So, the next few weeks I will be working on those orders, and planning for holiday stock.  And, hopefully, by July 4th, all the outstanding "no rush" orders will be caught up on.

But I have to say, when I stop and look at how many projects or orders I have outstanding it's daunting.  And I'm afraid that one could fall through the cracks.  So, I have devised a plan. I am going to print out a check list or packing list for each order and work through them one at a time. I know that if I try to look past that, I will start to panic and get caught up in how many more orders I have or how many animals or blankets or hats I have left to make.  Am I the only person who this has happened to? How do you handle it when you have multiple orders on your plate?