The NEW New Year

In some ways, we love the idea of January 1.

It’s a marker in time; a clean slate; an opportunity to bring to life all of the ideas that have been building up over the past year. But every year, January 1 passes by, and we are disappointed with what I’ve done to kick off the year. 

Really though, things start to fall apart at the end of November. 

You have to get through the holidays; you have client work that should wrap up by the end of December, but is always still lingering through the end of January; new business that you won in November and December that is supposed to kick off with the new year, but gets pushed until February; and all the while the end-of-year planning that you hoped to do in October and November is still looming large. 

January 1 comes and goes and whether it’s do more, read more, get outside more, or organize ourselves at work, we feel as though we start the year a step behind, and are already playing catch up.

But then, suddenly, around the second week of the month, it starts to happen. You get your shit together and January becomes a powerful month. The fun (and exhaustion) of the holidays are behind, a bright new year ahead, and there’s time for clarity of thought and priorities.

Which is why we propose that February 1 become the official Day of New Year’s Resolutions and New Changes. With the distractions and chaos of the holidays over, and 11 months of runway ahead of us, we have both the clarity of thought and time to implement our new big ideas based on a full year’s worth of experiences and hard work.

So what does it mean at Argus?

This year, we are giving all of our employees Atomic Habits by James Clear, a book that our leadership team has found incredibly helpful in streamlining our habits to be more effective, more successful, and give us more time for what we see as meaningful. We will implement new policies and groups to help our team focus on wellness and celebrating our work. We are kicking off a new thought leadership series centered around how we do what we do, and why our clients matter.  

And most of all, we will give ourselves the grace to have enjoyed the holidays with family; we will have finally bought our new planners; and we will have a true sense of what we need to do to kick off February like it’s January 1. 

We hope you’re able to do the same.