You know how you always hear about those businesses that get the big boost right after New Year’s Day? Places like gyms and fitness equipment stores and, I’m just guessing here, but I’m going to bet liposuction clinics, too. Well, I’m here to tell you that there is another side to New Years. That there are businesses which are shunned come January. SHUNNED, I say!
Perhaps, for the sake of argument, cookie shops.
Yes, January is sloooooooow around the shop. We know it. It happens every year. People push away that last bit of holiday fudge and think, “Good lord. I have GOT to stop eating sugar.” Then they stand up, attempt to button their pants and fuggetaboutit, we’re not going to see them around these parts for weeks.
No cookies for me, thanks.
On the up side, weary cookie bakers get a little break. We can take the occasional day off (HOOKY!) and we finally have time to do all those things that we have been putting off since Thanksgiving. We could try out new recipes. I could, in fact, get to crackin’ on a newsletter for the shop. One could always clean, clean, clean! Or update our customer list. Maybe even approach potential new wholesale clients.
Yes, yes, I could do ALL of those things. Here’s what I did instead.
- played online scrabble.
- worked on this blog
- obsessively monitored friends’ facebook status updates
- watched youtube clips and tried to pick out my favorite NON-Die Hard Bruce Willis movie…(Twelve Monkeys??? Unbreakable???? Or, awww, so sweet…The Kid??? Argh! I can’t decide!)
- drank roughly seventeen cups of coffee in effort to resist urge to curl up on table and take nap.
- snapped pieces off random cookies and consumed them. For quality control purposes, I assure you. (What? I can button MY pants…mostly.)
- added eight Bruce Willis movies to my Netflix queue.
Why is it that I am always most efficient when I am busy? Man, last month I was a whirling dervish of productivity. This month? Meh.
It seems that if left to my own devices, any and all down time would be frittered away in a brain-dead stupor, proving once again that I have no sense of balance. That, instead, I operate on a “law of averages” type basis. I believe that the mathematical equation looks like this:
frenetic busyness / comatose downtime = mild productivity
God help me once I retire. I’ll probably never get out of my pajamas at all. Yeah, I’m having a hard time saying that as if it’s a BAD thing.
I'm sitting here in my pajamas on this random snow day and thinking about doing about four things on your list. You've inspired my sloth!