This article was originally published on ComeRecommended.com.

With the holidays quickly approaching, it’s important to think about how they will affect your pitching to the media. Between extra time off and classic holiday distractions, reporters need you to help them fill their content calendars. Some of the standard rules of pitching change this time of year since reporters want to be able to take a break and celebrate.

Normally, the 24-hour news cycle is a stressor in public relations, but during the holidays, we can use it to our advantage. Here are some tips for to pitching content and press releases to reporters during the busy holiday season:

Move up your time table. With Christmas and New Year’s Day being on Wednesdays this year, many people will take these entire weeks off or at least make long weekends out of them. This means you have to think ahead about when you will pitch content. Try to get your pitches out early in the week, preferably on Monday. Reporters can use your pitch for the rest of the week, and they’ll be more likely to because that’s one less thing they have to worry about once the holidays hit.

Tie it in when appropriate. If you can write content that ties into the holidays, great, but don’t go overboard. If you have to stretch yourself to connect your topic to the holidays, don’t bother. Only write holiday pieces if they will truly work well. Otherwise, regular news and evergreen pieces will work just fine.

Write evergreen pieces. Because reporters will want to lay out their news schedule before those days off, the timeliness of your story is not as important during the holidays. In fact, it might even work in your favor to pitch evergreen stories in the upcoming weeks because media outlets can fit these in whenever they have a space to fill.

Write about the new year. Another kind of piece that works really well this time of year is the prediction piece. Consider the trends and new issues in the industry and how they will change in 2014. For example, last week I said content marketing will rule 2014, and explained why. People want to know what to expect in the coming months, so wrapping up the year with predictions is a great pitch for the media.

From working ahead to writing timeless content, you can make the holidays easier on yourself and the media. You just need to make sure you plan your schedule well in advance. Plan out the rest of your year now, so you know what you can get accomplished. The media aren’t the only ones who want to have long weekends. By following these pieces of advice, you can make it so both you and those reporters get to enjoy the holidays.

What are some other important things to keep in mind when pitching during the holidays?