It’s October long weekend already. It creeps up on you when the actual holiday Monday is the first day of the month. One minute you are in the tail end of September and before you know it, you are enjoying the day off and suddenly realising that Christmas is just around the corner! All bets are off as to when the first Christmas muzak is going to start streaming from the shopping centre car park loudspeakers.
It’s this time of year that we start taking stock and contemplating just how the year panned out, compared to how we thought it would as the fireworks were exploding at midnight, 9 full months ago. It also dawns on us, that if there were things we told ourselves we would achieve this year, we are 75% of the way there, so we’d better get a hurry on.
Seeing as nobody can predict the future, it is a safe bet that nobody’s year goes exactly to plan. Sure, we can all get done the things we said we would get done, but we can never know who that next phone call or email is going to come from, or what that next opportunity might be. We can only fully control what we do, not what anyone else might do.
So it is this October long weekend that we at Cyrius reflect on the year that in many ways went according to plan and in other ways went in totally different directions. We also look at the to-do list and realise that while it never seems to get any shorter, a thousand things did get ticked off this year. Whether we were cleaning out the old paperwork from years gone by, or laying plans for the future, we got up each day and got things done.
Here is our little set of things to do as the year’s final quarter kicks off:
Christmas is Coming
As usual, anything that really needs doing before the end of the year needs to be done by Christmas. Best to start now, because we all know how crazy things get as the silly season gets into full swing. Start prioritising now, so as not to be disappointed. Maybe those shopping centres are onto something – it might be time to avoid the rush and do your Christmas shopping now!
Update your Website
For some reason, even though Websites are critical to most businesses these days and Search Engines seem to favour sites that update themselves regularly, people never seem to get around to updating them as much as they would like. How about banging out a blog post or two (just like I am doing) and start thinking about what else you might do. Why not add a few case studies of the work you have done this year? Track down a couple of new testimonials or photos for your gallery? Review all your text and see if it is still relevant, with regard to how your products and services might have evolved in the last 9 months or so?
Give your goals a second wind
Maybe you intended to do more than you actually ended up doing so far this year. Why not review those goals now and give it a real good shot for the next three months. With 75% of the year gone, that still leaves 25% and if you procrastinated at all, then you can probably get just as much done in three months as you got done in the last nine.
Start forward planning for 2013
You know how this year went. You know how the last countless years went. Maybe 2013 is going to be different. It will be if you approach it differently. Instead of waiting until New Years Eve to make your resolutions, why not start thinking about them now? Look at the calendar and see how it is panning out already. It might be time to pencil in some exciting new things. Block out a weekend or two, or set some deadlines that are easy to count back from. Things get hectic as Christmas looms, so take the time now to think clearly and map out some success for yourself.
Clean-up
How many emails are in your inbox? How many files are sitting on your (real and virtual) desktop? How efficiently have you filed away all the attachment files you have been emailed all year? Are they all in one big messy folder, or have you saved, re-named and filed them where they belong? How is your office looking? Have you let it go, or kept it completely organised? Why not approach the final quarter of 2012 in a state of peace and calm, sitting at a desk where the only thing on it is the thing you are working on right now? Is there anything you know you should have taken care of months ago, but kept putting off? Do it, tick it off and file it away.
Newsletter
Did you tell yourself you were going to contact all your clients this year with a nice friendly newsletter? Did you never get around to it? Don’t leave it too late, or you will be making contact just as they start to get frazzled and unravel with the approaching silly season. Get the jump on them – and on yourself – by putting something together this week and getting it out. You will be making contact at just the right time, allowing for enough time to take on any new work they might give you as a result of the contact and encouraging them to make the most of the remaining three months of the year.
The clock ticks and the calendar flips at the exact same pace, every moment of our lives. The only thing we can do is to make the most of the time we are given. This October long weekend, Monday 1 October is the perfect time to get to work. It is Labour Day, after all...
Comments