The January Slump

• Jan 27, 2025
• Journal, Planning, & Reflection
• 3 minutes reading time

I find January such a rollercoaster month of emotions. The first week is usually spent with family and having a well-needed rest to get over the year that was. At the same time, there's the bulk of 365 days in front of you and a certain level of enthusiasm for making change, taking a fresh start, and getting things done. But once you head back to work and the routine kicks in, you realise, "Hey, this job takes up a lot of time and effort, and I don't feel there's much left over for everything I wanted to do". It starts to weigh you down, even though the sun is shining^[1] and the weather is probably too hot.

I find this time of year is a real motivation slump for me. I really like reading Doug Belshaw's ways of working and how, over the years, he has become more seasonally attuned. I've never thought about it or given it much time and scope, but it's crept into my mind over the last year. I can recognise this slump, the same as the one in winter when we don't have a break and go somewhere warm. It feels odd though, having this feeling in the middle of summer.

I remember Alain de Botton discussing the idea of having time in the calendar for festivals and events and rituals' role in grounding us. This was in relation to what we can learn and borrow from religion in a more secular society. Ritual is one thing that I've spent most of my life avoiding. The rituals of religion were probably the first to drop off, and once the forced timetable of school-based ritual was finished, so was I.

After that, I guess I've just been freestyling, not having any actual rituals, any real structure, just bobbing along, moving from thing to thing. But to be honest, I'm starting to crave structure a bit more, at least wanting to feel more connected to things and having those common rituals and events seem logical for that to occur.

I know a lot of people have work rituals, such as a regular conference that they go to every year. That's been hugely challenging in my role as a professional staff member of a university, as we're not given the same structural perks or opportunities. Funding isn't made available on a recurring basis; it's potluck depending on how the budget looks that year. We tend to have a pool of funds available to a group of staff, so it's unfair to expect that you get the same allocation every single year moving forward while others don't get an opportunity to do any development. At the moment, work is so ad-hoc and unpredictable it's impossible to build any structure or routine there.

So I'm starting to think that with this lack of motivation starting to kick in – I need to do something. I guess January is the only time of year I tend to come to a complete stop. It's perhaps starting the engine again that is the challenge. Stopping is important. It has meaning in itself. That ability to switch off, that ability to sit around and watch the cricket for a day, is really important, not just from the mental side of things but from the physical too. That's probably where I'm feeling it the most, not having that same motivation to head to the gym or head out for a hike – especially in the heat. This, in turn, impacts my mental health, and then the slump kicks in.

Trying to get out requires a kickstart to push past that initial resistance and inertia There's a clip that appears on Reddit fairly often about starting a tractor with a shotgun, and I'm wondering if that is what I need, some short, sharp explosion to get things up and running.

Happy to take suggestions.

• Tim Klapdor
• Adelaide, Australia
• & posts