February 4, 2025
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5 min read
Ever wonder what small business owners and over-worked circus clowns have in common? They’re often juggling too many balls at the same time.
We get it! We’re founders of our own small business in the website design and branding industry and know how difficult it can be to juggle business priorities, goals, and client work. With only so many hours in the day, it doesn’t take long before you’re stretched too thin and experiencing extreme burnout.
If you can relate - then this blog is for you!
Consider 2025 the year you refocus your energy on the right work at the right time and allocate your time efficiently so you can grow your business and reach your goals sooner. In this blog, you’ll learn what to prioritize in your business, which tools and technology to use to save you time and energy, and more of our small business tips for 2025.
Spark & Pony is a creative web design agency that brings together 35 years of combined experience. For more small business tips and marketing know-how, check out our blog!
Take a look through our five steps for prioritizing your business goals in 2025.
If you’re anything like us, you have a million tasks, goals, and thoughts in your brain at any given time. It’s time to get those out of your brain and onto paper (or a digital task management tool).
First, write down all the business tasks and goals you have. Listing these tasks as individual items can make them feel more doable and can de-clutter your brain.
Our team loves to use Nifty, a project management tool that lets us keep track of our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly tasks as a team. Having a digital app that can assign task priorities, set deadlines and organize our to-do lists and goals has been a game-changer.
The Kanban board view lets us see our tasks and goals at a glance and keeps our team on track.
“But how do I know which tasks take priority?”
“And, which goals do I aim for first?”
Prioritizing your business tasks can feel tricky and overwhelming at first. Luckily, several helpful prioritization methods can help you navigate your 2025 business goals, and the Eisenhower Matrix is one of them. This visualization tool classifies tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance.
Is the task:
Don’t waste your time, money and energy on tasks that don’t align with your business goals.
Another helpful tool is our goal-setting and branding alignment exercise, which helps you determine which revenue, marketing, and efficiency streams your business should focus on today, in three months, and later in the year.We explain how to work through the exercise in the video below:
In our goal-setting video above, Michelle demonstrates how to prioritize your goals with lengths of time, desirability to your business, and do-ability. Make sure you download the FREE worksheet so you can do this exercise for your own business.
“What, stop multi-tasking? But I thought we just learned how to re-juggle our priorities?”
Trying to tackle a bunch of goals at once can lead to burnout, mismanagement, missed deadlines and stress. In fact, research has shown that mental blocks caused by multitasking can cost up to 40% of someone’s productive time.
You can’t afford to lose your productivity and efficiency, nor can your team. That’s why we recommend focusing on one task at a time, in one department at a time.
It can be chaotic if you try to do too much at once! For example, you might want to get new business cards, implement a new CRM program, and start a new social media strategy simultaneously. But the reality is you won’t be able to execute all of them effectively if you’re dividing your energy and time between all three. Avoid excessive task juggling by picking one goal from each area to start first before moving on to the next.
In addition to cutting down on multi-tasking, taking time for yourself is essential. Being a small business owner can be demanding and leave you feeling drained. Make sure you get enough sleep, prioritize your time with friends and family, and invest in activities that recharge you.
What we do:
As well as prioritizing your business goals this year, we encourage you to take care of your mental and physical health too.If you need help beating procrastination and giving yourself mental breaks during the day, consider the Pomodoro Technique. Yes, the Pomodoro tomato timer. This technique involves choosing a single task to focus on, setting a timer for 25 minutes, working on your task until the timer goes off, and then taking a 5-minute break. After repeating this for four rounds, take a more extended break.
It’s easy to fall into a state of being constantly busy and treading water. In fact, many small business owners know nothing else besides the rush of endless deadlines, project ideas, and everyday responsibilities. However, a key part of knowing what to prioritize in your business is also knowing how to prioritize your business’ future.
Blocking off time to focus on your business's future and investing in behind-the-scenes strategy can make a big difference! We encourage you to create SMART future goals.
Setting SMART goals includes creating action plans and business goals that are:
Once you have some SMART goals set, you can also prioritize those in your project management tools and calendars.
Do you need help solidifying your brand? Discovering who you are as a business? Or creating actionable steps for your future business goals?
You might find immense value in our brand discovery sessions.
Our sessions help you discover what makes you different — tying your customers' needs to your solutions. Through our research and expert knowledge, we help businesses and organizations understand, prioritize, and focus on a clear vision to help them achieve their goals.
Get access to more of our small business tips for 2025 in blogs like “A Small Business Guide To Keywords.”
Spark & Pony is here to help you and your business thrive. We’re experts in creating a strong brand, curating your company’s online presence, and helping you show up authentically to your customers. Book a Brand Discovery Session to learn more about branding and business goals.
Check out our web design, branding, and digital products portfolio here.
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