On Deep Work in the Dark Months

As we hurtle towards the end of the year, the pressure to finish everything can sometimes be overwhelming. The systems we work in demand speed. But imagination and ideas often require the opposite.

If you are feeling the “end of year” burnout today, this 5-minute read is for you.

– Kieran

The Season of Stillness

I can’t hide the fact that as Winter starts to break and the evenings draw in, my heart warms. I realise I’m perhaps a little odd in my love for the cold and crisp chill of winter, which I find far more invigorating than the slowing sweat of summer. And while each and every season tells a story and asks questions of me, it is this season of stillness that speaks to me most clearly.

As a family, we fully embrace the joys and kitsch of Christmas. From the first of December, we are ready and waiting, hoping for snow, sometimes waking in the middle of the those dark nights when it’s forecast to see if the street has been decorated by the solid precipitation of ice crystals. And come January, we are prompted, provoked even, to tidy, organise, and think afresh.

A Cartography of Ideas

I often feel myself more productive in these cold months too. I seemingly do more exercise and am open and alive to new ideas, ways of thinking, and possibility. I have an urge to experience the winds and feel the textures of December. And the daily chore of cooking becomes a chance to explore new and indulgent flavours, craft and creativity. Or perhaps I just love cloves.

This may seem a little out of sync, out of touch even, with the season of introspection, of slowing down, of blankets, log fires, and icicles.

Is it not time now leaves have settled on hard ground to close off, to hibernate?

Perhaps.

But to my log-fuelled mind and evergreen heart, winter is when I come most closely in alignment with the season and what it is trying to tell me. I find all seasons particularly powerful for reflecting on how to work and for imagining how we could work differently. Winter sparks ideas of slow and deep work, of puzzling, of fragmenting, and of repositioning thoughts. It is not a time about productivity and harvest, but connecting and cementing the year that has gone and unwrapping possibilities for the seasons ahead.

In winter, I am both able to embrace being in my own company and world, and be warmed and cozied by blankets and family. I love to be awoken both by the sharp frost of sea air and the noisy excitement of my children waking and wanting to open that next advent calendar door. And I am always amazed as the distant fragments of landscapes, previously hidden, are now in view now the fruits and colours of autumn have receded.

“Just One More”

So I don’t retrench in winter and hide. I let the season envelop me and actively engage with rest, thought, and reflection, ways of being that are only accentuated by the razor sharp contrast of bitter walks, festive joys, and ‘just one mores’. This season in someways glitches, in a beautiful and thought provoking way, causing me to think imaginatively in sharp relief.

While the winter solstice welcomes the silence of night, winter also welcomes the first snowdrops, signalling renewal, hope and possibility, lighting within me my own roaring fire and focus.

These ill-lit months are the time for ink pen, thick lined paper, and candle. They open up space for a cartography of ideas for the year ahead.

Recently, I was asked about my feelings towards this season and was asked the question of how I would like to be in December. After a moment, my thoughts coalesced with ice crystal clarity:

steeped, like a good cup of tea.

Imaginative Exercise

Take some time to reflect and journal some thoughts on the below questions:

How do you want to be this December and January?
What do the winter months ask of you?
How could you work and lead well in Winter?

I’d love to hear your ideas and how you are ending your year.

–Kieran

This post was originally published in my newsletter, The Tinderbox: Dispatches from the Edges of Imagination. The Tinderbox is a biweekly series of writings focussed on three interrelated topics:

LIVING imaginative lives
LEADING imaginative organisations
LOVING imaginative places and communities