The decorations are up.

Christmas music wafting out of every shop door.

Mulled wine is being served on seemingly every street corner.

There’s no ignoring that the holiday season is officially upon us.

But perhaps the best indicator that the end of another year is here is the one bombarding us on our social media, newsletter, and podcast feeds.

No, I’m not talking about the recent wave of Black Friday sales notices.

I’m talking about the stream of content challenging us to “not wait until January 1st to start on our 2023 goals” that crops up around December 1 every year.

Urging us to push through the end of the year.

To continue the relentless grind we’ve subjected ourselves to all year in order to continue (or build) our momentum.

I know the advice is well-intentioned.

But it still irks me.

Not just because I think we deserve (and require) a break from the relentless grind it takes to start and grow a creative business.

But because this type of thinking takes such a narrow view of what it takes to achieve creative progress.

The Neglected Facet of Creative Productivity

Let’s not kid ourselves, frequent and decisive action is essential to making progress toward our goals.

As a result, most productivity advice revolves around how to take more action and get more done.

More action = more progress the thinking seems to go.

And at least in part, that’s certainly true.

But there’s an essential prerequisite for productive action that standard productivity hacks and hustle culture consistently neglect, which is this:

For action to amount to anything, it needs to be focused and directed in the right direction.

That requires clarity.

And clarity rarely finds us when we’re in the thick of implementation & action.

Rather, it almost always finds us immediately after a period of intense action, when we’re able to slow down, step back, and gain enough distance from the fray to gain some perspective.

Without taking regular steps back to reorient ourselves, we risk barreling forward, head down… making fantastic progress in the entirely wrong direction.

Far from slowing our momentum, then, regular rests, reprieves, and reorientations are not only essential to recharging our energy stores, they’re a core component of long-term creative productivity.

Which means that rather than pushing through December at breakneck speed, the very best thing we can do for our creative work and businesses is to slow down.

Slow Down to Speed Up

There are few better opportunities to slow down, step back, and gain perspective on where we’re at, than the end of each year.

It’s one of the vanishingly rare times we as a society allow ourselves to collectively slow down and reflect.

If you’re like me, at this time of year you might regularly be finding yourself preoccupied with big-picture dreaming, brainstorming, and idea exploration… at the expense of your daily task list.

The “push through to the new year” advice encourages us to ignore these frivolous distractions and focus on squeezing just a little bit more productivity out of the year.

But while the value of big-picture dreaming, visioning, and planning may be hard to quantify, without it, our work tends to lilt toward the mundane, generic, and bland.

Despite its necessity, however, we rarely make space for it, often deferring to the more tangible outcomes of action.

It’s worth noting that those in the “push through” camp are often staunch and vocal advocates of completing a structured annual review, a practice I too find an incredible amount of value in. But that review is often boxed into a single day, afternoon, or couple-hour-long time block.

The problem with this approach is that I’d wager there are challenges, puzzles, and problems in your life and work that will take more than a couple of hours to solve.

In fact, there’s a good chance the (perhaps only) reason they’ve persisted this long has been a lack of time and space to slow down, sit back, and ponder.

Nature abhors a vacuum, after all, and big ideas and breakthroughs have an uncanny way of showing up when we create the space for them.

So while I’m guessing you, like me, still have a long list of unfinished goals and projects on your annual to-do list, it’s possible that the single most productive thing you could do with the remainder of the year is to set them aside.

Slow down.

Pause.

Plant your feet.

Orient yourself.

So that when you’re ready, you can push off toward the next goal with energy, focus, and intention.

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This article originally appeared in my weekly Creative Wayfinding Newsletter. Each issue is the product of a week of work, and contains something not available for sale.

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