It can give you a complete picture of how your year was, and also assist us in taking important decisions by acting as a base while preparing the new year plans and strategies.

Really helpful, and def gonna be my every year habit starting from now!

My approach to email volume? Lots of folders and subfolders in my Microsoft Outlook. There are subfolders for each client in a ” clients” folder; subfolders for prospects in a “prospects” folder, subfolders for branding gurus in a “branding” folder, and so on. The only problem with this system is it takes about a minute each morning for Outlook to process.

With local clients I have taken them to lunch, but not this year. Several clients work for companies that do not allow gifts to be accepted so I just express my gratitude with an email. Perhaps this year I will actually write them “Happy Holiday” cards.

I keep each project I do on a spreadsheet. Each line contains the agreed-upon particulars like price, due date, project type. It also acts as an on-going status report and a final record of the job, including hours spent, amount per hour, when invoiced and when paid. At year-end, all I need to do is add everything up.