For many service-based business owners, the holiday season and start of the New Year means a little less work 🙁 , but also a little less chaos 🙂 … and time to finally work ON your business. As you sit down to plan for your New Year, here are 3 questions I’d encourage you to ask yourself.

1.What do you LOVE to do?

As your company grows and changes, so do your responsibilities. However, you should spend part of everyday doing something you LOVE to do. Whether this means something truly IN the business (I know an owner who still loves doing touch ups) to a networking lunch once a week (don’t let anyone tell you “lunching” isn’t work), to digging into a spreadsheet and crunching the numbers, there’s no wrong answer. Just be sure to allot the appropriate amount of time to what you love (ie – not all day) so you can still get all of your other to do’s taken care of, which leads me to…

2. What do you HAVE to do?

As the owner, there are certain duties and responsibilities that only you can truly handle. Make a list of what you HAVE to do on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis and knock it out early in the day or week so you can get back to doing what you love. And for everything else….

3. What are you WILLING to do, for a little while longer?

As your company continues to grow, hiring some additional overhead help will become necessary. Make a list of all of the tasks that you’d love to hand off to someone else to execute and then, when it’s feasible, go find them. If you’re still running a solo operation, the “first hire” dilemma is usually between an office admin or a field ops person. Your list of what you love, have and are willing to do will help you determine which one makes more sense first for you. And if you already have that extra help, this is a good exercise to make sure the work they’re doing is truly lightening your load in the most helpful way.

Here’s to enjoying a little quiet time this holiday season and starting off the New Year with a plan to continue building the business you’ve always dreamed of.

#businessplanning #ONthebusiness #strategicplanning #newyear #newgoals #newopportunities