We know how the week between Christmas and New Year’s goes. For those of us who don’t have vacation or PTO days to use, we basically dress for work like we’re going to Walmart, show up late, take a two hour lunch, and go home early.
The hours in between are spent creating mini-golf courses, playing poker, rediscovering table football, and inventing ridiculous office games, like the Dunder Mifflin crew did during the “Office Olympics” episode of The Office.
While I could play table football all day long, I’m trying to convince myself to be productive by making a list of tasks to accomplish during the most non-productive week of the year. Here’s what I have so far:
Get My Ducks In A Row For My Mobile Website
Right now, I don’t have a mobile friendly website, so this is priority one. I’ll be finalizing the content and design so I can have my mobile website built soon after the New Year. Mobile web browsing is expected to surpass desktop web browsing in 2013. All businesses, mine included, need to get on board.
I’m doing my homework to make sure I understand my options before I make the investment – a dedicated mobile website, responsive design, or a combination of both, balancing the customer experience with ease of maintenance. More on this in a future blog post.
Review My Social Profiles
I want to make sure my profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Web.Search.Social. and other platforms are up to date and consistent. Incorporating a few more keywords wouldn’t hurt either. However, I won’t update them just for the sake of updating. They may seem stale to me because I’ve read them a few hundred times, but even the most regular readers of my content have only read my profiles once or twice.
Offer Recommendations And/Or Endorsements
I’ve worked with a lot of great people in 2012 and the least I can do is recommend or endorse their work on Linkedin. Most people do this so they can get a pat on the back in return, but I think a good recommendation shows what you look for and appreciate in a potential business partner. That said, I don’t just give recommendations to anyone. A referral that doesn’t pan out is bad for everyone involved.
Review Contracts
I hate legal jargon, but it’s a necessary part of life to have certain legal language in my contracts in order to protect myself. Fortunately, I haven’t run into any problems thus far, and I plan to do what’s necessary to keep it that way.
Track Work Expenses
I dread this every year. Once again, I’ve failed to maintain an updated list of work expenses, so I’ll need to backtrack and compile a complete list for tax purposes. Meetings, networking events, mileage, website updates, new business cards and other expenses will make a big difference on my tax bill.
Do Stuff That’s Not Work-Related
We all need to recharge our batteries, right? By the time the ball drops in Times Square, I’m sure this will be at the top of the list and that’s not a bad thing. Not to sound overly cheesy, but the most productive time I have is my family time.
How are you being productive this week?
I know what you mean Scott. Since I’m no longer in corporate America I normally work most holidays anyway. Now the last four days have been pretty dead but they should be. Most people are taking off to spend this time with their families.
I actually spent two days going through all my comments and deleting dead links. I did this for a reason too so I can do a post thanking those loyal readers and commenters so it was killing two birds with one stone.
Now I have some things to get prepared for with this upcoming year so I can see where this will be a slow week for me but that’s a good thing,
Hope you get your site taken care of.
Merry Christmas.
~Adrienne
I’m trying to do the same thing as you, Adrienne… get ready for a new year, except somehow this time of year seems to be busier than usual and something keeps popping up. Of course, I **want** to get things done but half my brain is still thinking about the plate of cookies downstairs 🙂
Hi Adrienne – As the one man in my one man shop, I work around most holidays, too. I’ve spent the last couple days writing content for early January. So much for breaks. The mobile website will happen sooner or later. Still doing my research so I’m not learning after the fact, but that mobile presence is priority one. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, too! Scott
Updating profiles — this struck home with me as that’s something I haven’t done in a very, very long time. The more I dread it, the more difficult a task it becomes in my mind. Maybe I’ll take this week of relaxation to tackle that one, since I won’t be doing much else! 🙂
Andi, I’ve had “update profiles” on my list for about 2 years. It’s one of those things that’s such a pain but also seems so unnecessary in comparison to the million other things on my list, so it keeps getting bumped down to last. And to your point, the longer it gets put off, the more monstrous it becomes. I’ll kick your butt into updating if you kick mine 🙂
Hi Andi – What makes it even more difficult is that because I’ve read mine hundreds of times, I feel like I need to change it. If it makes its point and is consistent with my other messaging, I need to leave it alone. We’ll see how that works out – Scott