For me, like so many others, Labor Day weekend signals the transition to fall. I often spend the three-day weekend wrapping up the procrastinated summer household and garden tasks to clear my docket for the fall list of house and garden projects that I’ll endeavor to complete before the snow flies. Each year, I promise myself that I’ll do a better job of staying on top of things in the weeks to come. However, this year, I’m using a great new life hack that I just learned about from Katy Milkman.
In her book, How to Change, Katy Milkman talks about the “fresh start effect.” The fresh start effect is the idea that starting a new life chapter—whether it’s progressing from student to employed professional, turning a page on a calendar, or even—as I feel today—transitioning from one season to another—can provide an impetus for change.
I found this concept quite intuitive and encouraging. It’s a way to use the passing of time to our advantage to make the changes we’d like to see. I realize, that as Milkman points out, the situation itself may not change, but we can use these natural resets as an opportunity to shift our attitudes and approaches to the situation, allowing us to take a new run at things.
The great thing about the fresh start effect is that nothing needs to change in our external environment to create change. The change is in our attitudes—something far more under our control—which helps us make the shift. For me, it means that I’m entering the new season, the relatively new month, or for some, the new year (L’Shanah Tovah!) as someone who stays on top of these tasks.
It’s relatively simple to see how the fresh start effect can work for us as individuals, and that alone can have an impact on our organization, but how about using a reset for your organization? Strategic plan languishing on the shelf? It doesn’t have to sit there until it’s time to make the next plan—use a reset, such as the beginning of a month or a week—and work with the board and staff to use a fresh start to revisit it. Maybe you’ll end up scrapping it for parts to make it a more adaptable document. That’s ok. Better to have everyone working from the same plan than working from their individual versions of it.
Is it time to retool a legacy program? Use the fresh start effect to create the transition. Naturally, it’s important to use fresh starts that speak to most people in the organization. Fortunately, there are plenty to choose from—a new day, new week, month, season, fiscal year—any (or all) of these reset opportunities may speak with varying degrees of strength to those in your organization.
So often, it can feel that we are working against time—there aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week to do everything that needs to be done. Using the fresh start effect is a life hack that allows us to use time to our advantage to create the changes we’d like to see in ourselves and in our organizations.
About the Author
Regenia Bailey is a seasoned expert on nonprofits. She builds long-term relationships with local organizations, offering strategic planning and organizational development services, as well as coaching. More about Regenia.
