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Bin January 1st: The calendar trick that changes everything

ended 06. December 2025

65% of us hate winter. But what if we've been doing it wrong?
Clinical psychologist Dr Stephanie Fitzgerald says to bin 1st January as the New Year. Restructure the whole calendar instead. Winter becomes January to March, Spring is April to June. Game-changer: winter now starts December 22nd, so every day after brings MORE light.
Meanwhile, beneath that brown, bare land, root systems are strengthening. Seeds need the cold and dark. Dormancy isn't failure, it's how spring happens.
New research from King's College backs it up: winter nature walks boost wellbeing for up to eight hours.

What helps you actually enjoy winter (not just survive it)?
Does the calendar restructure make sense?
What are YOU preparing for that you can't see yet?

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Sarah Gatford
The Positivity Pathfinder - Head of Interactions at Sarah Gatford Ltd
The idea of a calendar restructure is brilliant. Suddenly, I'm not "failing" at New Year's resolutions, I'm recharging. Preparing. Like those seeds under the mud.
December 22nd becomes rock bottom, and every day after gets measurably lighter. That's hope you can track.
And that 8-hour wellbeing boost from winter walks? Absolutely tracks with my outdoor coaching. People arrive knackered, convinced nothing's happening in their lives. Then we walk through brown, bare fields in the cold. Something shifts.
They're not suddenly happy. But they stop fighting the season. Stop calling themselves lazy for slowing down. Start seeing winter as preparation time, not wasted time.
A spring launch in April makes way more sense than 1st January goals when you're exhausted, and it's pitch black by 4pm.
I'm using winter to plot, not launch, then the seeds of my ideas can grow in Spring. Because restoring January beats failed resolutions every single time.
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Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
My head is already in Goa, even if my feet are freezing in Burton. I am not built for this weather. However, this research validates what many of us in the high-pressure tech space have felt for years: January is the wrong time to restart the engine.

We treat human energy like it's a flat line on a graph, ignoring that we are cyclical creatures. Trying to force peak performance in the darkest months is the definition of inefficiency.

If we shifted the corporate calendar to match our biology, using winter for planning, reviewing, and 'root strengthening' rather than frantic execution, we’d likely see less burnout and better results. Winter is for thinking, not sprinting.