Because the best deserve a break.
Sho! Is there anything greater, than this time of year?
A time of joy and festive cheer.
A time when the weather is great,
A time when we use any excuse to celebrate.
Before we launch into a new genre of thought leadership poetry, enough with the rhyme.
Seriously though, whether it’s the smell of sunblock in the air or Michael and Mariah becoming the soundtracks to our lives again, December hits different.
You wouldn’t push a pull door
Whilst December vibes hit different, they can also hit back. Let’s face it, when the clock strikes December, most people go ‘out-of-office’ long before their inboxes do.
So, pushing for productivity during this period is just that.
A bit of a push.
A push for more focus on ROI than SPF. A push because everyone would rather be working on their tans than on their tasks. A push because there’s this “its 5 o clock somewhere” vibe that transcends time itself.
So, here’s a radical idea: don’t push. Pull. In fact, dive right on in. Submerse yourself, your team and your tasks in all the sand covered, ice-clinking goodness that is December.
Setting your team up to sizzle and not fizzle
Sounds ideal, right? Just diving into December with the same reckless abandon of a beach trip on Boxing Day.
But there is nothing quite like the sentiment “January profits are made in December”, to go straight from easy breezy to queasy. However, fret not, whilst this is true in many regards, one could and should stretch this thinking.
You have a full 12 months to set yourself up for future success. You have had all of 2024 to help you start off 2025 with a bang. Not just the last 31 days of it. 31 days, as mentioned above, during which your team is either literally or at the very least mentally OOO.
Because you know what’s worse than sunburn in December? Burnout. No amounts of aloe vera will help you with that.
But let’s look forward and not backward, hindsight can be 2025. So, use this time to think about how you can create a 2025 so strategic, so effective, that come this time next year, your team is sizzling and not fizzling.
Work smarter, not harder.
Make decisions, choose technology, choose structures that enable you to begin with “the end in mind”. So, by December 2025, your team can be taking a break instead of breaking down.
To the sizzlers
To those of you, the converted, the tech-stacked and strategy-jacked, the smarter not harder workers among us. You’ve put the jingle sells into jingles.
We see you, we salute you.
You have gotten more out of 2024 and now you get to celebrate that. May your out-of-offices be funny and may your pool days be sunny.
