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📋 January Task list - A list of things to-do.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 243 - January Task List, we're tryin' out a new(ish?) format + coming up with a list of ideas you can use to get your sugar cookie bakery headin' in the right direction this year.

Could you do all of these tasks? 🦸‍♂ Only after you finish saving Louis Lane from the high-rise fire. ⚡ But since we're not Superman (or woman), tackling just a few of these each month could just be that one thing that puts you over your competition.

And in the world of stiff icing and stiffer competition, 🤏 every little inch counts. 

💡 We're just going to list out our list from the podcast so you can reference it, and I'll add my $.02 throughout. 

• ⚡ Rollover tracking spreadsheets to 2026
• ⚡ Update CRM with December contacts 
• ⚡ Create an outline of your content buckets for 2026
• ⚡ Schedule out January content calendar 
• ⚡ Add December contacts to newsletter lists
• ⚡ Segment newsletter lists

💡 Segmenting a list means separating the list by contact category. So let's say you taught an in-person cookie class and had 10 people sign up, and then in December, you sold 15 custom orders. That's 25 emails, but segmenting them as "📝 List - Cookie Class Attendees" and "📝 List - Custom Clients" would allow you to send really targeted emails to them in 2026.

• ⚡ Stage quarterly newsletters now (as drafts)
• ⚡ Get inbox to zero

💡 New to "inbox zero" - it's paring down your inbox until there are zero emails. Then, each day, you get it back to zero. How? 📬 Deleting, archiving, replying, labeling, and unsubscribing. Let me tell ya - it's a battle, but booooy is it refreshing not to be overwhelmed by your inbox! 

• ⚡ Set up inbox labels to manage inbox
• ⚡ Audit recurring expenses 
• ⚡ Setup financial tracking software (YNAB) 
• ⚡ Update website to reflect 2026 offerings 
• ⚡ Audit website for dead or broken links
• ⚡ Update auto-responders in email and social
• ⚡ Update social media bios
• ⚡ Replace pinned posts on social profiles for 2026 timestamp

💡  If your pinned posts are already "up to snuff," it's still worth the repost for the 2026 timestamp. Your pinned posts are the first written date your audience sees when clicking to your social profiles. 📆 Having those say, "YES, I'M STILL HERE IN 2026," signals you're in this to win this, this year.

• ⚡ Lay out an in-person cookie class schedule
• ⚡ Audit supplies - packaging, business cards, bows, etc.
• ⚡ Purge expired inventory 
• ⚡ Organize and purge product photos - label for easy search
• ⚡ Organize receipts and mileage logs for taxes 
• ⚡ Create email templates for quick replies to inquiries 

💡  Email templates are my Gmail JAM. You can easily create them by writing out the email as a template, the same way you would write a normal email (I write in ALL CAPS and [brackets] to know which info I'll need to update every time I trigger the template). ✍️ On the formatting bar of a new email, click the three stacked dots - then hover over Templates, and finally click Save draft as template. Now you can trigger that draft every time ya need it.

• ⚡ Create a list of active, local groups to market to in 2026 
• ⚡ Audit pricing to ensure costs are covered + profit 
• ⚡ Update Google Business Profile with 2026 hours + holidays