A Dead Month For FOAK

When I was working in Russia, January was always a dead month.

Mandatory 8–12 days of holidays at the start of the year, followed by another one or two weeks of “extended” vacations. Clients, investors, suppliers — all happy to reconnect, but preferably sometime after mid-January. Even those back in the office moved slowly.

Europe doesn’t have the same formal shutdown.
But culturally, January is still a soft month.

That is — unless you’re working on a FOAK.

In FOAK years, I was always short on time with the one thing that actually mattered: the team.
Investors needed updates.
 Suppliers needed decisions.
 Customers needed reassurance.

The people doing the real work somehow kept getting deprioritised.

Until January.

That quiet window was often the only moment to sit down properly: align the team, clean up plans, reset KPIs, surface issues that had been accumulating quietly in the background. Not PR. Not strategy decks. Just operational alignment.

I came to think of January as front-loading the year.

Because by spring, investors want last year’s numbers.
 By summer, you’re deep in suppliers and customers.
 By autumn, you’re on the conference circuit.
 And by winter, you’re fixing problems that started while you were distracted.

FOAK doesn’t slow down — but January gives you a rare chance to get ahead of it.

How do you use this month when building physical projects?