Most business owners I talk to come back in January with an IT checklist. Hire two people. Fix the website. Finally deal with that laptop situation.
That last one usually stays on the list until it breaks in March.
An IT plan with no dates on it is a gym membership. You feel better for having it, and nothing changes unless you take action. So here are five jobs small enough to finish in the first week back, in the order I'd do them.
1. Move off text-message codes before February 1
This one has a deadline. Microsoft is retiring SMS and voice call codes for multifactor authentication in Entra ID on February 1, 2027. If anybody at your company still gets a text to sign in to Microsoft 365, they need to be on an authenticator app or a passkey before then, or they're going to have a rough Monday.
We covered what's changing and how to switch in our post on the retirement. If you're a Solve iT client, Veronica's team has already been in touch, and we're handling it with you.
2. Pull access for everyone who left last year
Employees, contractors, the intern from the summer, the vendor whose project wrapped in October. Old accounts are doors, and nobody's watching them. Run the list of active users against the list of people who actually work for you. Our year-end cleanup post walks through licenses and access together, so you might save some money while you're in there.
3. Restore one file from backup, on purpose
Pick a folder. Bring it back. Write down how long it took.
A backup job that says "success" is a claim, and a restore you watched is evidence. February is when a lot of small businesses find out the difference, so I'd find out in January.
4. Circle the computers that turn five this year
You don't have to buy anything this week. Just get the inventory list, mark what's due in 2027, and pick the quarter. We laid out the whole approach in Your Five-Year Hardware Plan Is a Budget Document.
5. Put four review dates on the calendar
One a quarter, an hour each, with whoever runs your IT. What changed, what's due, what's at risk, what it'll cost. If the meetings are on the calendar in January, they happen. If they aren't, it's December again, and somebody's saying "we thought we had more time."
What can wait
The new AI tool, the phone system, the big cloud project. All good conversations for February, once the five jobs above are done and you know what you're dealing with.
If you're not sure where your business stands going into the year, book a free threat assessment. We'll run a dark web scan and a phishing simulation and give you a plain-English security posture report with what to fix first. You keep the list whether or not you ever hire us.
Happy New Year from all of us at Solve iT.
