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It’s January. You’ve got a fresh planner. Maybe it’s color-coded. Maybe it has stickers. Maybe you spent a whole Sunday afternoon on your vision board, cutting pictures out of magazines and arranging them just so, surrounded by candles and a motivational playlist.
I’m not judging. I’ve been there.
But here’s what I want you to actually hear this January: planning is not doing. And for a lot of small business owners, the planning IS the procrastination.
Ouch. I know. Stay with me.
January goal-setting theater
Every year, the productivity industry has a moment. The planners sell out. The apps get downloaded. The 90-day sprint frameworks get dusted off. We talk about “intention setting” and “quarterly priorities” and “cascading goals” like we work at McKinsey.
And it all feels amazing. Productive. Like you’re finally getting your act together.
...and then February hits, and nothing has actually changed, and the planner has three days filled in and 362 blank.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: planning feels like progress because your brain releases the same “I did a thing” chemicals whether you made a plan or actually executed the plan. It’s sooo not the same thing, but your nervous system doesn’t always know the difference.
So you plan. And you plan more. And you revise the plan. And you feel busy and productive and like you’re building toward something...
...while the actual thing you need to do sits untouched.
The difference between planning that moves the needle and planning that’s just procrastination with better stationery
Real talk: some planning is absolutely necessary and worth doing.
Planning that moves the needle looks like this: you spend 30 minutes mapping out the three most important things your business needs this month, decide who’s doing what by when, and then immediately start on the first one. The planning serves the doing.
Planning that’s procrastination looks like this: you spend three hours building the perfect system to track your goals, research five different productivity frameworks, set up a new project management tool (because the old one “wasn’t quite right”), and end the day feeling super accomplished but having produced exactly nothing for your business.
The tell? If your planning doesn’t end with an action... it’s probably not planning. It’s avoidance.
And it’s totally human. Doing the actual work is scary because it can fail. Planning can’t fail. A plan is just a plan. It’s safe. But safe doesn’t grow your business.
4 things you can actually DO this week
1. Send three personal outreach messages to past customers. Not a newsletter blast. Three individual, specific messages to people who’ve bought from you before. Tell them you’re thinking of them, ask how they’re doing, mention something relevant. No ask, no pitch — just reconnect. Watch what happens.
2. Pick one piece of content and actually post it. Not the perfectly scripted, professionally photographed, beautifully designed thing you’ve been “working on.” Just post something real this week. A tip you know cold. A behind-the-scenes moment. A question for your audience. Done is infinitely better than perfect and still sitting in your drafts folder.
3. Follow up on one thing you let slip. You know what it is. The proposal you sent in November that you never followed up on. The customer who had a question you meant to answer. The collaboration idea you said you’d “circle back on.” Pick one. Send the message today.
4. Audit your easiest win. What’s the one thing in your business that’s working but you’re not leaning into hard enough? More of that. This week. Not a plan to do more of it. Actually do more of it.
(Warning...incoming Gen X pop culture reference) Remember Footloose? Kevin Bacon’s character didn’t show up in that town and hold a planning meeting about dancing. He just... danced. In the warehouse, by himself, furiously, because he knew the only way through was to actually do the thing.
Your business needs you to dance in the warehouse this January. Not to schedule the dancing. Not to create a vision board about the dancing. To actually move.
The permission slip you didn’t know you needed
You are allowed to do things imperfectly. You are allowed to try something and have it not work. You are allowed to show up in your business messy and unpolished and figuring it out as you go.
What you are NOT allowed to do is keep hiding behind the planning and calling it progress.
This year, let January be different. Let the color-coded planner be a tool, not a security blanket. Let the vision board inspire action, not replace it.
Everybody cut, everybody cut. Everybody cut footloose. The warehouse is waiting.
Want to talk more about what actually works for small business marketing? The Underestimated: The Small Business Advantage Podcast is your place. Real strategies, real conversations, no fluff. Find it at shawnasuckow.com.