Founder’s Year-End Checklist: Honest Decisions Before January Hits!

Here’s a year-end checklist to help you tie up loose ends—so January doesn’t blindside you.

Author

Glenda Carnate
December 23, 2025

Read time: 2.5 minutes

If January already feels overwhelming, it’s probably not your plan... it’s the pile of decisions you haven’t made yet.

By December, founders aren’t lacking for ideas or ambition. What most are really carrying is a pile of unresolved choices. Hard conversations get pushed to next year, people avoid making calls, and busywork sneaks in to fill the gaps. December can feel like a break, but it’s often just a pause on the hard stuff. When January speeds up, all those decisions you put off turn into bottlenecks and headaches. What felt manageable before suddenly leads to burnout, not momentum.

The Founder Year-End Decision Checklist:

Pull this up, print it out, or jot notes in the margins. Just make sure you’re honest with yourself as you check each box.

1. The Decision You’re Dodging

  • What’s that call you keep putting off... even though you already know the answer?

  • Are you telling yourself it’s just not the “right time,” or is it just tough to face?

2. The People Question

  • Is there someone on your team you wouldn’t rehire if you had the choice today?

  • Who do you secretly worry about, even if you haven’t said it out loud?

3. The Focus Gut-Check

  • What’s something you keep working on that, deep down, you know isn’t really moving things forward?

  • If you could take one thing off your plate, guilt-free, what would it be?

4. Where You’re (Still) the Bottleneck

  • What keeps ending up on your desk that honestly shouldn’t?

  • What’s one call you could make to get things moving, without you being in the way?

5. January Gut-Check

  • If January hits at full speed, what’s the first thing that’s going to break or stall?

  • What’s one decision you could make now to avoid scrambling later?

Final Check

  • Are you heading into Q1 clear-headed and recharged… or just running on fumes?

💡Key Takeaway: 

Momentum comes from making decisions... not just waiting for motivation to strike. You get your energy back when things are clear, not when you try to power through the fog.

👉 LIKE if this checklist named something you’ve been avoiding.

👉 SUBSCRIBE now for founder frameworks that replace noise with clarity.

👉 Follow Glenda Carnate for practical decision tools that unblock momentum.

👉 COMMENT with the box that made you pause the longest.

👉 SHARE with a founder who’s planning Q1 without closing December.

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