January 11, 2026

Dry January for Your Business: 6 Tech Habits to Quit Cold Turkey

Millions of people are doing Dry January right now.

They’re cutting the one thing they know isn’t good for them because they want to feel better, work better, and stop pretending “I’ll start Monday” is a plan.

Your business has a Dry January list too.
It’s just made of tech habits instead of cocktails.

You know the ones. Everyone knows they’re risky or inefficient. Everyone still does them because “it’s fine” and “we’re busy.”

Until it’s not fine.

Here are six bad tech habits to quit cold turkey this month — and what to do instead.

Habit #1: Clicking “Remind Me Later” on Updates

That little button has done more damage to small businesses than any hacker ever could.

We get it. Nobody wants a restart in the middle of the day. But those updates aren’t just adding features — they’re often patching security holes that hackers are actively exploiting.

“Later” turns into weeks. Weeks turn into months. And now you’re running software with known vulnerabilities that criminals already know how to exploit.

Things like the WannaCry ransomware attack crippled businesses worldwide. How? It exploited a vulnerability Microsoft had patched two months earlier. Every victim had clicked “remind me later” one too many times.

The cost? Companies in more than 150 countries lost billions as operations ground to a halt.

Quit it: Schedule updates for the end of the day, or let your IT partner push them in the background. No drama. No surprise resets. No open doors for attackers.

Habit #2: The One Password That Works Everywhere

You’ve got a favorite password.

It meets requirements. It feels strong. It’s easy to remember. And you use it everywhere — email, banking, Amazon, accounting software, and that random industry forum you joined three years ago.

Here’s the problem: Data breaches happen constantly. That random forum? Its database was leaked, and your email-password combo is now being sold for pennies.

Hackers don’t guess passwords anymore.
They reuse them everywhere and see what opens.

This is called credential stuffing, and it’s responsible for a massive percentage of account breaches. Your “strong” password has become a master key — and someone else has a copy.

Quit it: Use a password manager. Full stop. LastPass, 1Password, Bitwarden — pick one. You remember one master password; it generates and stores unique, complex passwords for everything else. Setup takes minutes. Peace of mind lasts forever.

Habit #3: Sharing Passwords Over Text or Email

“Hey, can you send me the login for the shared account?”

“Sure! It’s admin@company.com
— password is Summer2024!”

Sent via Slack. Or text. Or email. Problem solved in 30 seconds.

Except now that message lives forever.

It’s in sent folders. Inbox archives. Cloud backups. It’s searchable and forwardable. If anyone’s email is ever compromised, attackers simply search for the word “password” and harvest credentials.

It’s like writing your house key on a postcard and mailing it.

Quit it: Password managers offer secure sharing — use it. The recipient gets access without ever seeing the actual password, and access can be revoked instantly. If you must share manually, split credentials across channels and change the password immediately afterward.

Habit #4: Making Everyone an Admin Because “It’s Easier”

Someone needed to install something once. Instead of adjusting permissions properly, you made them an admin.

Now half your team has full administrative rights because it was faster.

Admin access means the ability to install software, disable security, change critical settings, and delete important files. If those credentials get phished, attackers get all that power too.

Ransomware loves admin accounts. More access = more damage, faster.

Giving everyone admin rights is like giving everyone keys to the safe because one person needed a stapler.

Quit it: Follow the principle of least privilege. Give people exactly the access they need — nothing more. It takes a few extra minutes upfront and saves enormous pain later.

Habit #5: “Temporary” Fixes That Became Permanent

Something broke. You found a workaround.
“We’ll fix it properly later.”

That was 2019.

The workaround is now “how things are done.”

Sure, it takes extra steps. Sure, everyone has to remember the trick. But it works… until it doesn’t.

Those extra steps, multiplied by every employee, every day, create massive productivity loss. Worse, workarounds create fragile systems that rely on specific people and specific conditions.

When something changes — and something always does — everything breaks. And no one remembers how to fix it properly.

Quit it: Make a list of the workarounds your team uses. Just the list. Then let a professional help you eliminate them properly — once and for all — saving time, frustration, and money.

Habit #6: The Spreadsheet That Runs Your Entire Business

You know the one.

One Excel file. Twelve tabs. A chain of formulas nobody fully understands. Three people know how it works. One of them doesn’t work here anymore.

If that file corrupts, what’s the backup plan?
If the “spreadsheet person” leaves, who maintains it?

That spreadsheet is a single point of failure wearing a green hat.

Spreadsheets lack proper audit trails, don’t scale, rarely integrate well, and are often poorly backed up. You’ve built a critical business system on digital duct tape.

Quit it: Document the process, not just the file. Then migrate to tools built for the job — CRM systems, inventory software, scheduling platforms. These have backups, permissions, audit trails, and don’t depend on tribal knowledge. Spreadsheets are great tools — terrible platforms.

Why These Habits Are So Hard to Break

You already know most of these are bad ideas.

The real problem isn’t ignorance — it’s busyness.

Bad tech habits persist because:

♦  The consequences are invisible until they’re catastrophic

♦  The “right way” feels slower in the moment

♦  Everyone else does it, so it feels normal

That’s why Dry January works. It breaks autopilot. It makes invisible problems visible.

How to Actually Quit (Without Relying on Willpower)

Willpower doesn’t work for Dry January.
Environment does.

The same is true for business technology.

Companies that actually break these habits change their environment so the right behavior becomes the easy behavior:

♦  Password managers deployed companywide

♦  Automatic updates with no “remind me later”

♦  Centralized permission management

 ♦ Workarounds replaced with real solutions

 ♦ Critical spreadsheets migrated to proper systems

The good habits become easier than the bad ones.

That’s what a good IT partner does — not lecturing, but building systems where the right behavior is the default.

Ready to Quit the Habits That Are Quietly Hurting Your Business?

Book a Bad Habit Audit.

In just 15 minutes, we’ll learn about your business, identify the risks, and give you a clear roadmap to fix them — permanently.

No judgment. No jargon. Just a cleaner, safer, faster, more profitable 2026.

Schedule your 15-minute discovery call here.

Because some habits are worth quitting cold turkey.
And January’s a great time to start.