Get out your calendar and start circling dates. It’s time to do a little webcomics planning.

• If your taxes are not done by now, stop procrastinating. Get them done. No excuses.
• You should have a good sense for the conventions you’re planning to attend for the year. Start purchasing flights, car rentals and hotels now before rates go up.
• Mark your convention dates on a calendar and put reminders at the four-week, three-week, two-week, and one-week prior points reminding you of the prep you need to do. For example, at the four-week-prior date, you should make sure you have flyers printed and any merchandise either in-house or ordered. Three-weeks out: Double-check hotels / travel and ship materials. Two-weeks out: Start prepping site announcements and tweets to build buzz around your appearance. One-week out: Print your checklist for packing and start getting this ready for the Big Weekend.

Site

• Take a quick look at your stats over the last four-month period. Are you pageviews and unique-visitor numbers moving in the right direction? Are you getting good results from Twitter? If the numbers are rising, what can you do to keep pushing? And if you’ve plateaued, do you need to start incorporating a new push — whether it’s paid advertising or viral?

Merchandise

• Convention season is just starting to heat up. This is a great time to order some low-price-point merchandise (like enamel pins).

Personal goals

• Push yourself to breakout of the mold. Try a new panel structure. Take a risk on a different perspective — or a different kind of writing. Break a few habits this week.

Art

• Take a moment to look at your last two weeks’ comics upside-down. Could you be composing panels better?