Notebook
Nicole Junkermann on Closing the Year Without Rushing It
The year is nearly out and the temptation is to tidy it. Nicole Junkermann on closing a year honestly rather than quickly.
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The last day of October has a particular feel to it. The clocks have gone back, the year has two months left and no more surprises in it than usual, and there is a quiet pull towards getting everything into a finished state before the end. Nicole Junkermann treats that pull with some suspicion, because a year closed quickly is rarely a year closed honestly.
What the last weeks are for
They are not for finishing things that are not ready. A piece of work pushed to completion in November because November is where the calendar ends up finished in the shape of the deadline rather than the shape of the work. The pressure is real, the deadline is arbitrary, and the two are easy to confuse at this time of year.
What the weeks are genuinely good for is sorting. Separating the slow from the stalled, the promising from the merely familiar, and the commitments that still make sense from the ones kept going out of politeness. That sort can be done calmly in November and becomes much harder in the last fortnight of December, when everyone is tired and generous with themselves.
The tidying urge
There is a strong temptation to arrive at January with a clean desk. Nicole Junkermann has come to think a slightly untidy one is more honest. Several of the best things in any year are unfinished at the end of it, and forcing them into a tidy state mostly means pretending a decision has been made. Leaving them openly incomplete, with a note about where they stopped and why, costs nothing and preserves the actual position.
The same applies to the account of the year itself. A clean narrative written in late December will have smoothed out the parts that were genuinely uncertain, and those are precisely the parts worth remembering. Written now, while the year is still slightly in motion, the account keeps its rough edges.
The short account worth writing
Three or four sentences are enough. What was expected at the start, what actually happened, what was learned that could not have been read anywhere, and what is being carried into the next year on purpose rather than by default. Nicole Junkermann keeps hers in the Notebook, undated in style and firmly dated in fact, which makes it unpleasant to read a year later and far more useful than anything recalled.
The habit sits well beside the questions raised in what long horizons actually ask for, and it needs nothing more than a quiet hour. The Reading Room tends to supply the hour, and the Travel Journal supplies the excuse to take it somewhere other than a desk.
Ending without a flourish
A year does not need a conclusion. It needs an accurate note of where things stand, a short list of what is being continued, and enough rest to start the next one without resentment. October finishes tonight, November is a good month for sorting, and nothing worth keeping has to be finished by Christmas.
This article is a personal reflection and general commentary. It is not financial, investment or professional advice.
More from Nicole Junkermann
For more from Nicole Junkermann, read the full profile of Nicole Junkermann, or go back to skills as the slowest investment. The Lancaster Notes carry the quieter end of the season.