5 New Years Resolutions for Business in 2025

Let's break out the NA champagne and start making lists!

I know this is a controversial topic, but I absolutely love New Year’s resolutions and always have. I’ve heard all the arguments against them. But, they work for me! They make me feel energized and excited. I’ve actually made several in the past that I’ve kept and turned into lifelong habits. I also set goals for myself plenty of other times throughout the year and never think “oh I should wait until the New Year to start doing this.” Unless it’s December and everything is insane. Then, I do what I can to push off anything I can until the New Year!

Over the years, I’ve worked to refine my resolutions process and one way I do that is by creating buckets. The bucket I’m sharing today includes my New Year’s resolutions for doing business in 2025 that I also think others might benefit from. These are ranked in terms of how determined I am to make them happen.

1. Stop Living and Dying by my Inbox

This resolution has been on my mind A LOT in Q4 of 2024. I get and send a lot of emails. It’s a huge part of what I do. So much so, that it’s easy to let that process take over and dictate my day. But sometimes when that happens, it means that any creative work, content creation or planning takes a backseat until way later in the day, when I have less energy and brainpower (and my coffee caffeine has worn off!). I have heard tales of legendary people that successfully batch check their email two or three times a day (and maybe even have a well placed email responder that sets people’s expectations along these lines). I don’t think within my profession that I will ever get to this place realistically, but as a start, I need to work on hopping out of my inbox after any urgent messages are handled to do more “big work.” Which brings me to my next resolution.

2. Take 30 Minutes Each Day to Plan the Next

Sometimes it’s easy to get sucked into the email quicksand because I don’t have a clear picture of what to do next anyway, so that gives me something to do! To help combat this, I’m going to block out 30 minutes toward the end of each day to figure out the next day’s priorities and top tasks. Once I identify them, I can arrange them strategically on my calendar, putting high octane priorities on for earlier in the day, thus pre-empting the vicious email trap. I can even calendar in email checking time, setting a time limit for myself!

This whole process also provides a daily reminder to check in on goals, KPIs and priorities for different accounts, revealing the bigger picture instead of getting stuck inside a to do list, which can be tempting because it feels SO nice to check those boxes. Looking at my whole workload holistically helps me understand synergies and where I can eliminate busywork to focus on the more top level needs.

3. Continue the Continued Education

Being in PR has meant signing up for constant education. Whether I’m learning about the best ways to optimize a brand’s presence on an affiliate platform or the nuances of paths to regenerative agriculture certification, I don’t think I’ll ever know all I need to know. I spent plenty of time in 2024 furthering education for myself in one topic or another, but the resolution for 2025 is to make it a more formal part of my work day.

I want to plan for it, seek out more courses and webinars and 1:1 chats with experts. I’m also going to periodically incorporate audiobooks and podcasts into my daily dog walks that go beyond my usual personal interests to fit it in when time is tight. I particularly want to lean into learning more about some topics that I’ve been actively avoiding due to feeling overwhelmed or like I’ll “never get it.” Specific examples of this include: how taxes work, everything SEO, graphic design basics, how to determine the cost of customer acquisition. BTW, progress to report here: I’ve already bought myself a copy of “Taxes for Dummies.” It’s a VERY thick book, but I’m planning to break it down and do a little bit at a time to avoid throwing it out the window (figuratively and literally).

4. Incorporate Audits More Regularly

I recently listened to a great Goal Digger podcast episode from Jenna Kutcher where she talked about different kinds of audits and why they are important. Her advice really resonated with me, and it’s something I want to do more of in 2025. Often, we’re moving so quickly from one project to the next that we don’t take time to assess things that went well or not so much.

In case you aren’t familiar with the concept of an audit in this context, it’s essentially a review process where you check out all the elements of any given “thing” - it could be social media posts, a website, affiliate platform presence, email marketing stats - and you list out all the different metrics within that “thing” that are important to you - engagement, open rate, click through, conversion - and you try to find patterns, moments of success, moments of failure that you can line up with actions you took. In this way, you know for next time what tactics to lean into, which you shouldn’t waste your time with and which still need more testing and evaluation.

Whether it’s a product launch campaign or simply the month of March, I’m planning out several times in 2025 to perform relevant audits that will hopefully yield takeaways to inform future plans.

5. Create More Content

The trap of PR is that sometimes all you focus on is facilitating (or even writing) other people’s content, whether you’re helping a journalist with their story or drafting LinkedIn posts for a client. Sort of like that old line about the cobbler’s children not having any shoes? (Which, believe me, is real, since I’m a carpenter/contractor/PM’s wife with huge holes in my ceiling!)

But, starting this blog with Sarah has really made me realize, or remember, how much I enjoy creating content of my own, so I plan to lean into that more in 2025 in a few different ways. I may even develop new channels for that content. For instance, my husband (Dan) and I used to run an Etsy shop where we created tee shirts for dog parents and we’ve been toying with the idea of re-opening a storefront there with different offerings. Don’t be surprised if you see that in 2025. Of course, it’s extremely time consuming and we are BOTH quite booked with current commitments (please feel to read and subscribe to Dan’s construction and homebuilding industry-focused Substack here!). So given all that, also, don’t be surprised if you DON’T see a new Etsy store from us in 2025. It’s still up in the air. Last time, it turned out to be a LOT more work than I could have ever anticipated - shoutout to all those hard workers that make that platform great.

6. Don’t Stop Moving

This is not technically a new resolution as it's something I’ve been doing for quite some time, but the resolution is to keep it up: walking. Walking with my dog every morning is one of the very best ways to start my day and I always get my best ideas during this time where my brain is kind of, sort of focused, but not really. Spending time outside all year long, getting sunshine in my eyes, moving/avoiding being sedentary, getting my steps in … these are all very important to me and I firmly believe they help keep me energized, sane and motivated when I’m facing down long days of work, parenting, mom taxiing, meetings and chores (including WHAT’S FOR DINNER - EVERY DANG DAY!). This is time that’s just for me (and Waylon too, of course!) and I could never give it up. Besides, I love the concept of constant movement. It’s what a shark would do.

One of the best purchases I’ve made for my home office is a walking pad. This is a great back up in case the weather makes walking outside unbearable or if my day gets SO hectic that I can’t fit in as much outside walking as I’d like. I find it hard to do “big work” while walking, but checking emails or certain calls offer opportunities to fit in a bit more movement at my desk. Sporadic bouts of movement throughout the day keep me energized and sometimes lead to a creative sprint (sort of like a bizarre coffee substitute). In case you’re looking for one, this is the one I have and it has been working splendidly in conjunction with my convertible stand up desk since I bought it almost two years ago. I love that it works with a remote!

I’d love to hear what others are resolving for their business in 2025 - please share in the comments - it would be a wonderful addition to my ongoing education resolution!