Notes on starting the year slowly

January is two days old. The industry is already shouting about trends. The newsletters are full of forty-seven-point predictions for the year. The studio’s inbox has six “let’s collaborate” emails from people who have not heard the word said back to them in a week.

The only resolution worth keeping, in my experience, is to not start anything new in January.

This is not the same as doing nothing. The studio has a backlog of half-finished writing, half-considered components, and clients who were promised a small thing in November that did not get done. January is for finishing those. The new things, whatever they are, can wait until February when everyone has stopped shouting.

The work the studio is most embarrassed by, looking back, was almost always work started in the first two weeks of January. The work the studio is most proud of was almost always work that took its time to begin.

A small note, written down so I follow it: the next time I open a fresh file in January, ask whether it is finishing something or starting something. If it is starting, close the file. The world is not running out of fresh files.

Two pieces of writing in the same vein, for the small audience that wants more of this argument: Cal Newport on slow productivity and Robin Sloan’s notes on cadence. Both make the same broad point, with more nuance than I have given it here. The companion post here on taking the new year quietly covers the same territory at the next year’s January.