What productive thing do you want to get done before the new year?

[Harold Mansfield]

For me it was wrangling all of my emails and accounts. Specifically Google.

I've been with Google since before Google Voice, Google business, Google Pages, Google Knowledge graph, Google Plus profiles, rel="author" tags, Google Play Music and before Android.

So it goes without saying as all of these things came up over the years that I didn't want my personal stuff with business stuff, or different businesses or interests combined. Also along the way it wasn't clear how one thing would effect the other, what each had to do with Search, or what you did want to combine.

For instance, just because you created a business page, that didn't mean you also had a "Business" You Tube account. So do you want to mix your personal you tube content with where your business videos are posted? Of course not. And you can't create just a separate You Tuber account alone. So you make a new Google account. Start a new blog? New Google account.

Eventually I ended up with a 6 accounts (and emails that I don't use for anything except junk) that were a mix of personal, business, voice numbers, Android devices and so on.

I love Google and the bounty of tools that they have provided us, but managing Google accounts to keep business from personal is a pain in the ass and everyone knows it. Even Google.

I finally got it all cleaned up and down to 3 accounts.
1 business, 1 developer, and 1 personal, each in control of their perspective Google Business pages, shares, videos, wallet accounts, Voice numbers and connected to the proper devices web pages and other social media accounts.

I also removed all of the gmail addresses from those accounts and changed all of the log ins to their perspective private or business email addresses. And last but not least, got everything organized properly in Outlook and on the devices that I want them connected to.

It was hours of work, especially removing business related stuff from personal accounts, choosing nicknames, rewriting profiles, privacy settings..blah, blah, blah... but it finally all makes sense now.

So what about you? What's the thing you've been putting off that you really want to get done before the new year starts?

[Fulcrum]

Reorganize the shop. This includes streamlining the layout, rerouting electrical and water, building a few tables and chillers, setting up 2 new work stations. I'm about half way there and now that I've started I have to finish.

[turboguy]

I have an endless list of things I want to get done before the New Year. It is the same list of things I wanted to get done before Thanksgiving and virtually the same list I wanted to get done before Labor Day. I guess I will set Easter as the next target date. I do hope to get one set of cad drawings done and sent off this coming week. I won't hold my breath however.

[Fulcrum]

I do hope to get one set of cad drawings done and sent off this coming week.

This just reminded me of something else I need to do.

[billbenson]

I agree on cleaning up emails. I don't use my gmail account much. I have at least 3 accounts that I use as throw away accounts. Two real business accounts, and one personal account. I have emails archived back to 2007. And I have a lot of emails.I do occasionally need to refer to old emails.

I might work on this last years inbox, Then again, I might just enjoy the slow season and start fresh the first work week in Jan.

[Frenchy]

I on my way to get my first sofware ready for beta testing.
I have to redo (one more time) a whole set of in-house tests, brush off the help documentation, add an index for fast reference.
and It will be ok. I think tomorrow.

<removed>

Harold, I should do the same clean up, that's a brilliant idea

[Harold Mansfield]

Harold, I should do the same clean up, that's a brilliant idea

It feels good to get everything on the right account. Google accounts have been a pain in my ass for a while now. They aren't the only ones. This insistent need of search engines and social companies to try and be everything for everyone and insist that you only need one account for EVERY POSSIBLE THING is ridiculous.

They all need to get out of their own bubble and realize that people don't want their personal stuff mixed with business at all and that a lot of people have more than one business interest that are not related to each other. You would think that Google of all people would be more aware of this.

[Bobjob]

The Quickbooks. We've done our accounting on a ledger for far too long. We will not be 100% for a while but so far so good.

[KristineS]

Scheduling my various projects somewhere that allows me to see them all. I've been kind of fragmented, and it would be so helpful to see deadlines for every project all in one place. That and keeping better track of who I've invoiced and who has paid. I'm more trusting about that than I probably should be.

[Harold Mansfield]

Scheduling my various projects somewhere that allows me to see them all. I've been kind of fragmented, and it would be so helpful to see deadlines for every project all in one place. That and keeping better track of who I've invoiced and who has paid. I'm more trusting about that than I probably should be.

I was a little fragmented on that front as well. I tried using Quickbooks for a couple of years but it was too cumbersome and had too many features that I didn't need to be paying for.

What I ended up doing was using Freshbooks which has a great interface for keeping track of payments, who paid, sends reminders, recurring payments, track time, and clients can also log in and see their payment history.

Yes there's a monthly fee but it's worth it to me. It's about the same thing I pay for Adobe products every month which I use maybe twice a month.

For scheduling, I just use Google calendar and have it connected across my Outlook and all of my devices.

[Freelancier]

I'm nearly done with what I wanted to do: finish my web site refresh that I started back in April and add a few features to a product and launch it. The web site goes live this week and the product is ready to go except for the press release and actually releasing it. It's all good.

[NahidHasan]

Each year I do a common thing to make myself more productive.That is Zeero based thinking. I summarized my whole year. And then note down the destructive and productive things. Then I think which of the destructive part I should avoid if I get chance to go back. And I just deduct that part :)

[KristineS]

Thanks Harold, those are both good recommendations. I was thinking Google calendar for the scheduling part already, but wasn't sure what to do with the invoice tracking part. I'll look into Freshbooks.