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Brick No129: The problem with January, February and March
By Matt Weston, Friday 28 January 2005 Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now. Unless you didn't read a column inch of news this last week, it can't have escaped your notice that last Monday 24 January was officially dubbed the gloomiest day of the year. The scientific proof came from Dr Cliff Arnall, a health psychologist at Cardiff Uni. The formula he used to work it out, W+(D-d) x TQM x NA, might as easily be for paint stripper. A nation heaves a collective sigh of relief: "Heaven knows I'm miserable now. But at least everyone else is in the same sad boat." I want to shine a small business torch on this. For the first time since, well, this time last year, a notable share of my mailbag has come from "unmotivated" small business owners. It can't be an unhappy coincidence. What, you ask, can be done? The Middle Of Nowhere "T", I read, stands for time since Christmas. And that - at least to this pop-psychologist - is the key to the formula. January 24, and right up to the end of March, isn't just zero degrees C, it's the middle of nowhere. New Year Resolutions fade fast. There's not a bank holiday in sight. There's no light at either end of the tunnel. Right now, most of us are only about a third of the way through an unbroken bank of three months work. The only solution to this collective ill is to break up January, February and March with plenty of downtime. Any "creative" will tell you the importance of downtime: In "A Technique for Producing Ideas", a little book I read on a fast-train to Luton, adman James Webb Young argues that ideas appear "out of nowhere". Mid-shave, bathing, or when you're half-awake in the morning. "[Ideas come] after you have stopped straining for them and have passed through a period of rest and relaxation from the search." And in "On Writing", Stephen King (yep, he), writes about letting novels "rest" between drafts: "How long you let your book rest - is entirely up to you, but I think it should be a minimum of six weeks. "During this time your manuscript will be safely shut away in a desk drawer, aging and (one hopes) mellowing . . . you're not ready to go back to the old project until you've gotten so involved in a new one (or re-involved with your day-to-day life) . . ." The thing to remember is that admen and authors aren't any more creative than small business owners. They just happen to write more about the process. I know of nothing more creative than figuring out a new way to manufacture, distribute or sell a product. Although writing is creative, it is far more one-dimensional than running a business. But take the lesson. If you're constantly working on your business, you won't come up with new ideas. And if you want to move your business forward in Jan, Feb and March, build in some downtime. Bric-A-Brac (1) 9 Web Designers, 4 IT Experts, 2 Jewellery Makers, a Garden Designer, a Record Label, and a Translator. But, as yet, no Private Eyes. Yep, the Brickies Directory is live . . . Use it to find new partners and draw up shortlists of suppliers. (Small business owners should pull together, y'know). (2) Alex Smith emailed me last Friday, to ask why I chose Brick Nos 125, 118, 97, 53 for the new homepage: "There's nothing wrong with those, but Nos 80, 90, 102 and 110 would have been my choice". I'm going to rotate them every week, so Alex, your wish is my command. Any more for any more? Send us your favourites. (3) Ceri Veysey writes from Cardiff: "Is it me or do we Welsh seem to be conspicuous by our absence on the Reader Meet-Up map? If there's enough interest, I'll happily make the arrangements." Emails to Ceri please. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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