First, a moment to listen to Bachman Turner Overdrive’s Taking Care of Business because I bet your brain went there.
And now to take care of “end of the year business.” (Yeah, I know that there’s an entire month following November, but I also know that my brain is hijacked by the holidays. Frankly, my brain’s kinda been hijacked by Bachman Turner Overdrive right now…)
Anyway, here’s a handy checklist of Things To Do (If You’re a Writer) for Taking Care of End-of-the-Year Business.
*Check your blog and/or website for dead links to your online work.
*Consider cleaning out some of those old, tired links and adding links to recent work. This simple step will give your blog and/or website a freshness as well as get rid of that static vibe.
*Find your Goals for 2011 (You did write down your goals somewhere, right?) and review. You’ll still have time to work on the goals you completely forgot, and you’ll end the year feeling wonderful about the goals you accomplished. (If you can’t find your Goals for 2011 then I have a suggestion for what your very first goal for 2012 should be.)
*Take a mathematical look at your blog stats. Compare what posts generated excellent traffic to those that did not. Extrapolate and use the results to improve your stats next year. (I was looking at a picture of Albert Einstein right before I wrote this post.)
*Make a list of the writing books and/or business tools you’d like the Beneficent Mr. Hall to stuff under your tree. Of course, he’ll probably only stuff those goodies under my tree. But hey, you can ask.
*Clean your desk, work space, cubbyhole, whatever or wherever you work. You’ll start the new year with an organized perspective. (And you’ll probably be shocked at what you find amongst the mess. Well, I assume you’ll be shocked. My desk hasn’t looked that clean and organized since I took that picture a couple years ago. But I never said I take care of all my business.)
Cathy C. Hall Writes 
Man, these are excellent suggestions! Wish I had the discipline to actually follow them!
Thanks, Vicky! Er…wish I had that kind of discipline, too. :-)Maybe I should have called them the List of Things (I'd Wish) To Do!
Hey, I love that song! That's one of those great ones to drive fast on the highway listening to! :)And looking back at this year and cleaning out stuff?? Heck, I'm not ready to face any of that yet! :0
Thank goodness, I thought you were going to to talk about taxes. My desk, even when new didn't look this uncluttered. Have a happy day.
Good suggestions. I'm thinking I won't be able to get to that until January!
Hey Cathy,You are so on top of things. Thanks for the suggestions. Makes me want to take care of business.When I checked my blog stats, my most frequent post–and I'm not kidding here–was titled "We Interrupt this Blog Post."I still can't figure that one out.Donna
Grrrrr…I had a nice long comment and Blogger lost it. So now, briefly.Becky, the music was for you. ;-)Linda, I NEVER discuss Taxes. (Taxes? Who, me?)Lynn, January's a fine month for business,too!Donna, HAHAHAHAHHAA!
These are great, Cathy! I'll have to wait until December though, when NaNo is done. I have a few blank pages in the back of my planner where I jot ideas, goals etc for next year. I wish it was as organized as your list! I'm not even sure I can read my handwriting…