Instead of planning your New Year’s resolutions now, why not come up with end-of-year resolutions first? These are easily-measured goals to be achieved between now and December 31. Executive coach Randi Raskin Nash says if your business has downtime at the end of the year, there are ways for you “to capitalize on that time to get a jump start for the new year.” And even if you won’t have any downtime in your work, capitalize on the year end milestone to set some goals that you’d like to achieve by then, professionally or personally.

The executive coach suggests taking time to ask yourself the question “what matters most to me by year end?” and come up with two or three specific goals, such as organizing your desk to begin the new year fresh, rewriting your resume, spending focused time with family or friends, or keeping a regular exercise schedule. But Raskin Nash also says it’s important to do things to “replenish and recharge as opposed to zap and exhaust,” so don’t take on too much. “Be conscious of what you’ll do for the next six weeks,” the executive coach notes,” so you don’t have to spend four weeks recovering.”

Raskin Nash says now’s also a great time to attack those lingering things on your to-do list, or to reexamine whether those items should be on the list at all. For starters, instead of thinking of it as a to-do list, consider it a “what matters most” list, and choose tasks accordingly, Raskin Nash notes.

During these few weeks, it’s also a good time to “think about what patterns, habits, behaviors, etc. you’re going to leave in 2010,” says Raskin Nash, “so when you start the new year, you’ve already said ‘goodbye’ to them!”