The Usability of Christmas Holidays

We all look forward to the Christmas holidays. Wrong. Not all of us do. But many who are Christian and Jewish do, or who live in a country that celebrate this event. So, I am not going to go into the history books, quote from the Bible or even sing a Christmas carol (most are cringeworthy anyway), but I do want to pose a theory that for many of us, we do not, or never have had a usable Christmas holiday.Now I may have created a new term, please blame the time of the year! But, many of us who work fail year on year to make the most of the Christmas holidays and vacation time – thus rendering it unusable, or at least not usable to the standards we apply to products. Consider this – the definition of a usable product is one that is effective, efficient, satisfying and safe. What if we applied these terms to our own lives or to others at this Christmas time?Now for those who believe in Santa Claus (hands up who still do who are reading this!), I would offer the theory that he is a very usable character. Note that I don’t use the word person here – St. Nicholas, Santa Clause, etc. is a character. But he operates very efficiently – delivering all those presents around the globe in one night – the app you can download to watch this is mesmerising! If only Amazon could do the same! In addition, I feel he is effective in convincing millions of children that he exists, and that he lives in the North Pole - somewhere where no one really would want to live (the cold, lack of plant life, no Ikea or McDonalds – you get the idea), and that he is safe. Safe for children to believe in, and safe in operation. No one has seen him deliver all those presents and have an accident with a Coca-Cola lorry at an intersection! And finally, he appears to be satisfying to all the children who receive presents from him.So, at least one Christmas character is usable. The next character to consider is you, Mr., Mrs., Ms., reader of this blog. How usable are YOU with your Christmas holidays?My general theory is “not that much?” And I can include myself in this generalism. We work really hard all year round, bar a few weeks at Easter, in the summer and also at Christmas. And when we get some time away from work at Christmas what do we do? Watch television, visit our families and close friends, spend time socialising, buying food, and more food, and then drink, and more drink. And then it is over, and we are back to another year of work – at least until we retire, where surprisingly I think we then become usable. Retired persons, become social, organised, efficient when their bodies let them, making the most of the time they have left before the inevitable happens. But during working age, we don’t think about this level of usability much. And yet we should!What if you planned your Christmas to make it efficient? Efficient in terms of the time you have away from work. Visit more friends, acquaintances, spend more time helping a charity, do more of your hobby, spend more time with the children, or your nieces or nephews, don’t sit down and do nothing! Be busy, but busy in a satisfying way. Do things that you cannot do when you are working – but perhaps refrain from that all day at the bar thing! I believe that if you make yourself busy, you will have an effective Christmas period because you will look back and think “Wow, I did that, and this, and that” and at least you will perceive effectiveness. Obviously, you will be safe, or at least you will be as safe as possible. Do not drink and drive, do not burn the Christmas tree down, do not fall down on the ice etc. Accidents do happen quite often in the Christmas period, so be safe!In summary, have a usable Christmas, and come back in the New Year refreshed – satisfied and hungry for another long year of work! But a usable Christmas is one you won’t forget, and this makes it all worth it. From the staff at THAY Medical, we wish every reader, every client, every customer and everyone who has interacted with us over the past year a happy holiday period – whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Make it usable!Want to know more?For any questions on this blog post, please do not hesitate to contact us.The Staff at THAY Medical