Don't Wait For January: Change The Rhythm Now

I think January gets far too much credit.

We treat January 1 as if something magical happens at midnight and suddenly we're ready to change our habits, our businesses, our health, our relationships, our finances (all at the same time, apparently).

But our lives don't really operate on a January-to-December calendar. They operate in rhythms and seasons.

School starts. Tax deadlines arrive. Kids' schedules change. Clients enter planning season. Businesses close their books. The holidays come. Tax season comes back around again.

And each transition gives us a natural place to stop and ask whether we actually want to enter the next season the same way we entered the last one.

You already have the data

Think back to the last tax season. What did you swear you would never do again?

Maybe you worked too many hours. Maybe you had an employee who was clearly underperforming (and you spent more time compensating for them than dealing with the actual problem). Maybe 10–20% of your clients consumed a completely disproportionate amount of your time and energy.

Maybe your tech stack has one piece of software everyone hates, but replacing it sounds like such a project that you've just learned to live with the workarounds.

Or maybe every tax season you tell yourself that this year clients will get their information to you earlier—and then you use the same deadlines, expectations and communication that produced last year's results.

None of this is new information.

That's exactly the point.

Q4: Try the thing you've been afraid to try

What if you used Q4 to test one change you've heard other firm owners talk about but haven't had the courage to do yourself?

For example:

Let go of the team member who isn't working out.
You probably know who I'm talking about. The employee who requires too much management, isn't performing at the level the role requires, or creates problems for everyone around them. Obviously, handle employment decisions thoughtfully and appropriately—but don't confuse being a compassionate leader with tolerating something that isn't working.

Let some clients fire themselves.
You've probably heard the advice to fire the bottom 10–20% of your client base. But if that makes you nervous, there's another experiment: look at your least profitable clients and raise their fees to what would actually make the engagement worthwhile—maybe that's 20%, maybe it's more. Some will leave. Some will stay and become profitable. Either outcome may be better than continuing an engagement that doesn't work.

Stop tolerating broken technology.
Not a complete tech-stack overhaul (I can feel your blood pressure rising from here). Pick one system that creates friction every week. Fix it, replace it, eliminate it, automate it, or finally implement the thing you've been paying for but barely using. Imagine entering January with that one source of friction gone.

Rewrite the rules of tax season before tax season.
Don't wait until March to wish your clients behaved differently. Decide now what your timelines, deadlines and expectations will be. When does information need to be submitted? What happens if it's late? When will your team respond? What is actually an emergency? What isn't? Then communicate those expectations before everyone is under pressure.

None of these ideas is particularly revolutionary.

You've probably heard every one of them before.

The interesting question is: Which one do you know would make a difference, but you still haven't done?

Small shift. Very different destination.

This is what I find so interesting about the idea of a 1% shift.

Picture two lines starting at exactly the same point, with one angled just slightly differently. At the beginning, the difference is almost impossible to see. Follow them far enough and they end up nowhere near each other.

That's what we're trying to do here.

You don't need to completely reinvent your firm before December 31.

Maybe you change one client relationship.

One team decision.

One system.

One tax-season rule.

And then you get to see what happens.

Q4 becomes less about making a giant New Year's resolution and more about running an experiment.

Did it work? Keep it.

Didn't work? Change it again.

Either way, you arrive at January with more information than you have today—and, ideally, one less thing you've been tolerating.

The seasons can repeat. You don't have to.

Accounting has a lot of recurring seasons. Deadlines repeat. Extensions repeat. Year-end repeats. Tax season definitely repeats.

But there's no rule that says you have to repeat along with them.

Same crazy hours. Same difficult clients. Same team problem. Same broken workflow. Same promises to yourself that you'll fix it "after tax season" (and then somehow we're right back in tax season).

So before Q4 gets away from us, ask yourself:

What am I tolerating right now that I already know doesn't work?

And then:

What's one thing I'm willing to try differently before January 1?

You don't need a resolution.

You need an experiment.

Ready to stop waiting for the perfect moment and start building the practice you actually want? Join a community of women doing exactly that at cpamoms.com/start.