The winter slowdown is here
It's time to work with our bodies, not against them
I’ve been sleeping a lot recently. Unplanned naps on Sunday afternoon. Turning off 6am alarms and staying bundled up in a duvet until past 8. I’m much slower, too. I refuse to turn on the heating just yet, so days are spent under multiple blankets, moving from my desk to the sofa, where it’s warmer. Effort feels more effortful.
When I talk to other people, they say the same sort of thing. Everyone’s tired. They don’t want to leave the house. They share memes of illustrated mice in bed with the text ‘stop normalising the grind and normalise this instead’ or ‘in my cosy era’.
Of course that slowdown will come for our working lives - there’s a growing sense of ‘let’s just leave this ‘til the new year’. But there’s a part of us that refuses to admit it. We keep pushing and pretending that it’s time for the hustle when every part of our bodies and minds are asking to rest, bundle up, and duvet down.
I find myself wondering why we’re so intent on maintaining the pretense, on forcing ourselves to act against our nature. I’ve met people whose workplaces have summer hours; early end times, Friday afternoons off. But I’m yet to encounter an office that shifts the way they work in tune with hibernation season (if your office does, please let me know!).
I’ve written about the benefits of the reduced-hour week before, and in winter, this seems like an even better idea. Could we condense our hours, squashing them from both ends to allow for more sleep and freedom from the misery of commuting in the dark? Or perhaps winter working means more days working from home, where we can layer up in jumpers and fleece-lined leggings and have hot brown sugar porridge mornings because we don’t have to account for an hour’s journey into the office.
Or it might simply mean accepting a little less; acknowledging that now might not be the time to ramp up and do big effort projects, but instead slower, more meaningful work that will pay off in the spring. It’s not that we can’t work in the winter, and that we should just sack it all off, but that our bodies want us to work in a different way; one that allows for retreating and recharging.
I think we need to be gentler with ourselves. I think we need to give ourselves - and each other - a break. I think we need to stop soldiering on and listen to what we’re saying; that we’re tired, that we want blankets and hot cocoa, that we want to save meetings and big brainstorms for January. Pull the blanket back up to our chins. Hit the snooze button again. Let’s take it slow.
Work-related reading recs
Fascinated by the concept of the corporate psychopath (and v grateful I don’t work with one)
Thanks for this reminder, it is so true. It's ok to follow the seasons and feel a little less motivated at the beginning of the winter... we can't be superhuman all year
I feel so cynical saying it, but my initial reaction to this idea is, "Absolutely this is how it should work--but it will never happen." I wish I had more faith in TPTB to be open to an idea as eminently sane as working with our bodies and the seasons, but alas... I keep seeing too much evidence that the opposite is true.