Think of yourself as a product on a grocery store shelf: Do you want to be a popular, sought-after brand like Kraft or do you want to be a generic, lifeless brand?

In many ways you’re viewed in your professional life like a brand in a grocery store. Without a shiny packaging, you’re just another cheap commodity that anyone can buy anywhere. But as a powerful and recognizable brand, you can charge more, appear more valuable, and ultimately get chosen over the generic guy next to you.

Much like popular brand names don’t appear overnight, making a professional name for yourself and raking in huge checks doesn’t happen incidentally. It takes a ton of work and requires you to leverage every possible outlet to get your professional name out there. Fortunately, making your name professional doesn’t require a huge marketing budget or a big name PR firm. You can do all the hard stuff yourself.

You’ve surely experienced it yourself, the sudden production rush that occurs during the fall season, making the months of September, October and November a living hell in most offices. In some sectors, this labor-intensive period is due to the approach of Christmas and all its commercial opportunities. In others, it’s got more to do with the fiscal year coming to an end. Regardless of the cause, it’s best to prepare for the difficult times ahead. Here are six tips on how to survive the 3-month crunch without damaging your career or your personal life.

Pace yourself

Don’t procrastinate, but don’t try to do everything at once either. You wouldn’t want to burn out on the first week. To survive the 3-month crunch, schedule your workload with care, making sure to accomplish a reasonable number of tasks every day, and be mindful of your peak hours. Most workers get a bit groggy in the late afternoon, so use this period to handle repetitive assignments that demand little attention. You should also leave yourself time, especially in the last month, to deal with unforeseen complications. You can bet there’ll be more than a few.

If you work long enough, something along the way will probably happen to you. You will work with a co-worker who drives you crazy, a boss that doesn't get you, or an employee that keeps you up at night.

It's all a part of the working world.

At other times, things will happen to you that will throw you for a loop. Your job is eliminated. You are fired without reason. Your industry goes away. This is when it's important to take stock in who are you, what you want out of life, and where you want to go next.

So, how do you get yourself back on track; find your passion and purpose again, and reinvent the next phase of your career? You soul-search and ask lots of questions.