Between the years
A time for reflection, rest, and renewal.
This is my favorite time of the holiday season. I’m not a fan of Thanksgiving (if Thanksgiving food were tasty, we would eat it all year.) I’m something of a scrooge about the Christmas season (although having a child has grown my heart a couple of sizes this year). But the end of a year, and the start of a new one, that’s my shit.
There are three phases to the time between the years: A phase of reflection, A phase of rest, and a phase of renewal.
These are not discrete nor linear – they all tend to happen in December, fading into early January. Of course, we all have our rituals, but there is something special about everyone collectively agreeing we’ve reached the end of something, especially in these times, which both seem to take forever and happen in the blink of an eye.
Reflection
We leave breadcrumbs of our thoughts, feelings, and actions scattered across the web. There are so many places I can look back to get a glimpse of where I’ve been and who I was throughout the year:
Written journals
monthly financial snapshots
GitHub history
Photos on my phone
My blog and this newsletter
All of these provide glimpses into who I was throughout the year. It is fascinating to see what I’ve only recently lived and forgotten about or see how ideas that feel evergreen are recent.
Remember in January when we were all pontificating about NFTs and sending each other Wordle grids? Stable Diffusion was a game changer, but I only started messing around with it four months ago.
This is a time to reflect on what story we tell ourselves about the previous year, and where we are in our current story. This can help guide us toward where we want to go next.
But before we venture on, it’s nice to take a breather.
Rest
In my household, we’ve adopted Romjul, the Norwegian period of rest.
We all know the last week of the year doesn’t count, so why not make it official?
It’s a time of aggressively not doing anything. It’s about avoiding disturbances from the outside world and spending time with family, whatever that means to you.
Renewal
After rest, it’s time to spring back into action. Many people set new year’s resolutions, and most of us don’t stick to them.
Why don’t resolutions work? And if resolutions don’t work, why are they a tradition?
We’re bad at long-term planning. Waterfall doesn’t work for software engineering, and it doesn’t work for personal development, either.
Moralizing doesn’t work. Telling ourselves we “must” or “should” is not an effective motivator.
Negative reinforcement doesn’t work. - Resolutions can lead to beating yourself up over not keeping them. The threat of failing our resolution is not a strong enough stick. These are only discouraging and isn’t going to help you reach your goal.
Failing to keep promises to ourselves. For the Romans, a new year’s resolution was a promise to a God. It’s easy to go back on a promise you made internally to yourself, it doesn’t feel “real.” Would have a higher success rate if we held ourselves accountable to a higher power?
Bad resolution design – we pick targets that are too unrealistic, too abstract, too vague, or too expensive for us to make the trade-offs for.
We don’t measure progress. Have we defined success? How will we know if we hit our resolution?
What alternatives can we design that don’t run into the same problems as traditional ideas?
Quarterly goals –12-week year, and every OKR-brained person you’ve ever worked with understands this. We can’t make annual plans. We don’t know who we will be in the next 12 months. Tackling goals in a shorter time frame is more effective. Here’s a fun exercise: whatever you wanted to get done in 12 months, imagine getting it done in three.
Projects - Think of something you want to get done and do it. Projects require a clear definition of done and preferably a timeline. Write briefs about your objectives, constraints, trade-offs, and costs. This can help give you something smaller and achievable.
Themes - I don’t think every goal needs to be specific. I’ve taken a liking to set “themes” for the year. Last year the theme was “friendliness,” and I focused on building connections, improving my communication skills, and my own emotional management. For 2023, the theme will be discipline, focus, and min-maxing.
Don’t - You don’t have to set goals or strive for change.
2023
Regardless of how you decide to spend this time, I hope it’s restful and enjoyable for you as we transition into 2023. I think it’s going to be a good one.
Here’s to navigating more state transitions in the new year! 🥂
Really solid insights here. Especially with using quarterly goals over annual goals. Anyone can do something for at least three months.
Happy New Year!