Let’s Not Carry These Practices Over to the New Year

We’re just two days away from December 31 and turning the calendar over to 2026.  People are up to their eyeballs in planning for what they’re going to do in the new year.  Today, however, I prefer to campaign for what people should not be planning to do as we head into the fresh slate that is the next twelve months ahead.

These are listed in no particular order and are very much behaviors that I’ve seen far too much and I’m sure you will have experienced as well.  In fact, I would be quite surprised if you disagree with me on one or more of them and think that these actions are okay to continue perpetrating in 2026.

Let’s dive into this and you can use it as a checklist (a green checkmark for Agree, perhaps) as well as a reference point as January and February start to unfold so you’ll have an at-a-glance resource to perform a self-audit.

First is, let’s stop forcing items onto people’s calendar.  I’m a PC and an Android user, so in my case it’s my Google calendar.  I start looking at the week ahead – sometimes even the month ahead – and/or I’m planning my availability, say, for a podcast interview, for example, when all of a sudden, I discover something that brings a confused look to my face.  What is this and why is it on my calendar?

What’s even more of a turn-off is having to figure out how to ‘unsubscribe,’ meaning, let the person who initiated it know that I don’t appreciate it and want them to stop doing it.  I don’t want to attend your webinar or your networking event or your mastermind – and I don’t want to hear from you anymore because of your boldness.

Next year, pause as you begin typing your message to someone whether in Gmail or Outlook or whatever service you use.  I see so many senders starting off an email with “Wanted to check in” or “Thought you might want” – WHO wanted to check in?  WHO thought (I) might want?  Is there a reason you’re not saying “I” at the beginning?  If this is a business email, you’re being way too informal, especially if we’ve never had any communication with each other.

And by the way, my dad once taught me that when he was in grade school his teachers taught him that you don’t say, “I wanted to” – you simply do it.  In other words, you don’t say, “I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year,” you just say, “Hello (name), Happy New Year!”  Or “Dear (name).  Happy New Year wishes from (location and/or people).”

You’re going to tell me that leaving off “I” is a shortcut.  Well guess what?  So is using @ everyone in Facebook posts wherein we all get tagged/notified and that has gotten annoying too.  It is a “cry wolf” scenario.  ‘Ooh, wait, Jane has something that we all need to be aware of’ has suddenly shifted to a spam approach of, ‘everybody won’t care about this, but I want more engagement, so oh well, all of my followers are going to get notified and some of them will care and react.’

When you start doing it all the time, I put up a hard ignore.  It’s like the scene in Vince Vaughan’s phenomenal Christmas movie, “Fred Claus,” where one of Santa’s elves has to tell her boyfriend to stop using all CAPS and that “everything is not an emergency.”

Be more aware of a double standard as you start into the new year too.  Performers, I’m looking at you on this one.  Please don’t complain in 2026 when venues don’t get back to you even though people contact you with an opportunity and you don’t respond.  It doesn’t mean you have to like them not answering you but beware of committing the same offense and thinking it’s okay going the other way.

I love the platform and am very active on it, however sending someone a connection request on LinkedIn, having it accepted, sending a harmless Hello private message, only to have ulterior motives of luring them in so you can then drop a sales pitch on them is going to land you on the naughty list when Santa starts considering gift distribution just under twelve months from now.  It has gotten to where people don’t want to accept connection requests on there or don’t want to read the private messages.

Please make punctuality a new year’s resolution.  Being late – for interviews, for breakfast meetings, for Zoom meetings – is a huge turnoff.  It shows a lack of respect for the person’s time you are scheduled with.

Earlier I mentioned how people start off emails and now I’m going to come back to that method of communication in the hopes of exposing the folks who send me an email where I’m supposed to believe that someone internally wrote to them (as seen in a message below what you’re sending me) saying that they found me and would like you to contact me (for a meeting, a podcast interview, a conversation about a collaboration, whatever).  I don’t believe it and at best I might click Reply simply to say, “Please take me off your list.”  Leave that annoying practice in 2025 because, to borrow from a “Seinfeld” episode, “We’re not doing that anymore.”

I also recommend that you ditch the “I’m an open book” approach.  As part of my interview tips course, I encourage creators to not tell an interviewer, “You can ask me anything.”  Similarly, I’m shocked that at the end of 2025 there are still people that don’t have or think they don’t need a website.  They’ll either say, “I’m all over social media” (which, by the way, they’re usually not – as in, maybe they’re on two platforms) or they’ll mask not having a website by saying, “But I’ll talk about whatever you want.”  Well, how is someone supposed to have enough information about you in the first place to have questions to ask?!

Since I mentioned social media there, I also implore you to stop sending Facebook friend requests for fringe professional relationships.  That’s what LinkedIn is for.  I will leave you in Facebook purgatory if you send me a friend request and don’t know who you are, we have little to no mutual friends, and you’re already in my work email asking for something.

Lastly, don’t drop links into a Facebook group where they’re not relevant.  I remember someone who used to attend networking groups and was an Avon rep and she’d say, “My ideal customer is anyone with skin.”  And then she’d laugh.  The joke was on her.  Her target audience isn’t anybody/everybody.  A two-year old?  A 92-year-old?  THEY have skin!  Similarly, if you’re a podcaster and you join a Facebook group for podcasters, unless you do a show targeted towards podcasters, you shouldn’t be spamming, er, dropping links to your show in that group.  That’s not who your target listener is so you’re turning people off because you’re not working to solely hit your ideal audience.

Ditch these annoying practices and have a happy and healthy new year.

Now a Member of the Recording Academy, I have been helping indie music artists, authors, actors, entrepreneurs, podcasters, filmmakers, small business owners, and more for over twenty years.  What challenges are you having in your creator career that I can lend some insight to?  Connect with me so you can take advantage of all my experience, and I can help and keep you moving forward.