You've had your champagne. You've eaten whatever regrettable thing you ate at 2am. Now it's Friday, the world is slowly coming back online, and you have a choice to make.

You can ease into January like most people. Check some emails. Update some spreadsheets. Convince yourself that "next week" is when things really get going.

Or you can use the next 72 hours to set yourself up so January feels different. Cleaner. More intentional.

I'm going to walk you through exactly what I'm doing this weekend to make sure I hit the ground running on Monday. Not theory. Not philosophy. The actual tactical checklist I'm using.

If you do even half of this, you'll be ahead of 90% of your competition who are still "getting settled" come mid-January.

Hour 1 to 4: The Clean Slate Setup

Before you can build, you have to clear the deck.

Inbox Purge. Not organize. Purge. Archive everything from 2025 that doesn't require action. If you haven't replied in three weeks, you're not going to. Archive it. If it was important, they'll follow up. Start the year with an inbox under 25 emails.

Desktop and Downloads Folder. I know what yours looks like. Everyone's looks the same. Create a folder called "2025 Archive" and drag everything into it. You can sort through it later if you need something. You won't need something.

Tab Bankruptcy. Close every browser tab. Every single one. If something was important enough to keep open for weeks, it would have been important enough to actually do something with. Bookmark the two or three you genuinely need. Close the rest.

Tool Audit. Open your bank or credit card statement. Look at every recurring subscription. Cancel anything you haven't used in the last 30 days. I did this last year and found $340/month in software I was paying for but not using.

Physical Space. Spend 30 minutes cleaning your workspace. Not deep cleaning. Just clearing surfaces, organizing cables, removing whatever fast food wrapper is lurking somewhere. Your environment shapes your psychology more than you think.

This isn't about being neat for neatness sake. It's about eliminating the mental friction that accumulates when you're surrounded by half-finished business from last year.

A clean slate lets you think clearly. And clear thinking is the scarcest resource in business.

Hour 5 to 8: The Monday Meeting Prep

Monday is coming whether you're ready or not. Here's how to make sure you're ready.

Calendar Review. Open your calendar for the next two weeks. Look at every meeting. For each one, ask: Does this meeting have a clear purpose? Am I the right person to be in this meeting? Can this be an email instead?

Be ruthless. Decline or delegate anything that doesn't pass all three questions. Your default should be protecting your time, not giving it away.

Block Your Priorities. Remember your Q1 priority from the audit? Put actual time blocks on your calendar to work on it. I recommend at least three 2-hour blocks per week. Label them clearly. Treat them like client meetings that cannot be moved.

If you don't schedule time for your priorities, urgent but unimportant tasks will eat your entire week. This is not optional.

Set Up Your Weekly Review. Create a recurring calendar event for Friday at 3pm (or whenever works for you). Call it "Weekly Review." 30 minutes. Non-negotiable. This is where you check your three metrics and adjust course before the next week starts.

First Week Focus. Write down the three most important outcomes you want from Week 1 of January. Not tasks. Outcomes. What do you want to be true by Friday that isn't true now?

For me, my Week 1 outcomes are: New lead magnet live on the website. January content calendar drafted. One new automation built and running.

Three outcomes. Specific enough to know when they're done. That's it.

Hour 9 to 16: The Quick Win Sprint

Now we get to the fun part. Time to actually accomplish something before the weekend's over.

Pick one thing from your audit that you know needs to happen and can be completed in a few hours. Something you've been putting off that, once done, will feel like a weight off your shoulders.

Here are some ideas:

If your lead capture scored low: Build a simple lead magnet. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece. A checklist, a template, a one-page guide. Something genuinely useful that you can offer in exchange for an email address. Publish it this weekend.

If your follow-up is broken: Set up a three-email welcome sequence. Just three emails. Introduce yourself, share something valuable, make a soft offer. That's it. You can make it fancier later. For now, just get something running.

If your referrals are non-existent: Draft a simple referral ask email and send it to your five best clients. Something like: "Hey, I'm opening up some spots for Q1 and wanted to see if you know anyone who might be a good fit." Direct. Simple. Send it.

If your sales process is messy: Create a one-page sales call guide. The questions you always ask. The objections you always hear. The key points you always make. Document it so it's not all living in your head.

If your reporting is manual: Build a simple weekly dashboard. Google Sheets works fine. Three metrics: leads, conversations, revenue. Set it up so updating it takes 5 minutes instead of an hour.

The specific thing doesn't matter as much as completing something. Momentum breeds momentum. Starting the year with a tangible win, even a small one, creates a psychological flywheel that carries into the next week.

Hour 17 to 24: The Content Queue

If you're running any kind of content-driven business (newsletter, social media, podcast, whatever), this is your window to get ahead of the hamster wheel.

Batch Your January Content. You don't need to write everything this weekend. But you can outline it.

For me, that means: four newsletter topics mapped out, twelve social post ideas captured, and two long-form pieces outlined.

An outline takes 10 minutes. Writing from scratch takes 2 hours. Do the outlines now, fill them in throughout the month.

Schedule Your Distribution. If you have content ready to go, schedule it. Buffer is my go-to for social scheduling. Set up your first week so Monday morning you're not scrambling to post something.

Repurpose What Worked. Look at your best-performing content from 2025. What got engagement? What drove leads? Take those ideas and remix them. Different angle, updated data, new format. You don't always need new ideas. Sometimes you need better execution on proven ideas.

The 72-Hour Checklist

Here's everything above in checklist form. Print it out, check things off, feel good about yourself:

Clean Slate:

[ ] Inbox under 25 emails

[ ] Desktop and downloads archived

[ ] Browser tabs closed

[ ] Unused subscriptions cancelled

[ ] Workspace clean

Calendar Setup:

[ ] Next two weeks reviewed

[ ] Priority time blocks scheduled

[ ] Weekly review recurring event created

[ ] Week 1 outcomes written

Quick Win:

[ ] One tangible deliverable completed

Content:

[ ] January content outlined

[ ] First week scheduled

[ ] Top performers identified for repurposing

The Real Point

None of this is rocket science. You already knew most of it.

The difference between knowing and doing is execution. And execution happens when you create windows for it.

This weekend is a window. The noise is low. The obligations are minimal. The slate is as clean as it's going to get for a while.

Use it.

Because Monday is coming. And when it does, you can either be scrambling to figure out what you're doing, or you can walk in with a clean inbox, a blocked calendar, a completed quick win, and a plan for the month.

One feels chaotic. The other feels like control.

Choose control.

Here's to making 2026 the year things actually move,

Dan

______________________________

P.S. If "build a simple weekly dashboard" is on your quick win list but you don't know where to start, I built a Notion Dashboard Template that tracks the exact metrics we've been talking about. $97 and ready to use out of the box. Grab it here.

P.P.S. For the automation pieces (lead capture, follow-up sequences, reporting), the Automation Pack covers all three. Here's the link. Both Make.com and Zapier templates included.

P.P.P.S. Next week we're diving into lead magnets: what works, what doesn't, and how to build one in an afternoon. If your lead capture scored low on the audit, that one's going to be especially relevant. See you Tuesday.