If you’re a business owner, it’s as important to review the year that’s ending as it is to prepare for the new year to come. For the last few weeks, I’ve been touching on some key activities to be sure all loose ends are tied up before the calendar turns.
– Taxing Matters: I’ve done a tally on this year’s numbers, hunted and gathered documentation for deductions, assessed how to best round out charitable giving as well as any last business purchases for attribution to this year’s return and made sure all clients have a copy of my 1099 and are current on payments. I’ve also soaked my mind in some helpful articles to spark final smart moves in these last days of the year.
– Year in Review: As I look back on a blessedly successful year, I’ve made note of the “Best Of” projects to help me determine where to focus my energy going forward. Defining my “Best Of” projects as those that blended passion and profit, I’m honing my expertise and narrowing the promotion of my business to hit more “Best Of” targets in the year to come. This process is helping me better define and articulate what I do—and what I don’t want to do, as well. Hopefully, I will have so many preferred projects that fillers simply won’t be necessary.
– Electronic Decluttering: I’ve been cleaning out my inbox! Since things slowed a bit over the holidays, I’ve taken time to click “Unsubscribe Me” (rather than hitting “Delete”) on the bevvy of emails I’ve somehow subscribed to over the years. I’ve also bowed out of some LinkedIn Groups that I clearly lost interest in, nixed a couple Google alerts I set up long ago, and I purged my email marketing list. I’m looking forward to spending less time fussing with unwanted messages; what a relief!
– Putting the “New” in New Year: I’ve pegged a couple of new endeavors I want to devote time to in the new year. These endeavors are extensions of the “Best Of” biz projects I just mentioned, and my hope is to launch them as fresh revenue streams and an outgrowth of that honed expertise I’ve been defining. To that end, I’m squaring a little time during this relatively quiet holiday week to create some marketing materials to make my first steps in these new directions as effective as possible.
Suffice to say, all these tasks require revisiting throughout the year. I do my fair share of defining, determining, decluttering and endeavoring every month of the year. What about you? What’s on your To Do list as we prepare to welcome a new year?
Thanks for reading…and Happy New Year!!!
small Biz Big time 