Why the First Week Back Always Feels Harder Than It Should

The first few days back after the holidays can feel brutal.

If you were lucky, you got some real distance from work.
Time with family.
A slower pace.
Maybe a trip, a few workouts, a movie, a football game, or just the rare experience of not constantly thinking about what’s waiting in your inbox.

Then January hits.

The pace snaps back fast.
Meetings resume.
Messages pile up.
Everyone is trying to remember where things were left before the break, while simultaneously being pulled into what’s already urgent again.

That disorientation is normal for any manager.

But if you’re new to your team, this moment carries more weight.

This is the first time you and your team are restarting the year together.
They’re feeling the same post-holiday whiplash you are.
They’re trying to find their footing, reestablish momentum, and make sense of what actually matters right now.

And beneath all of it sits an unspoken pressure:

We should be moving faster than this.

This is where many well-intentioned managers make January harder than it needs to be.

They treat the first week back as a test of speed.
They push meetings forward.
They dive straight into execution.
They assume momentum will magically reappear if everyone just starts running again.

What actually happens is the opposite.

People move, but not together.
Decisions get made without shared context.
Energy gets burned before direction is clear.

The team looks busy, but not aligned.

One of the most important leadership lessons I’ve learned is this:

The first week back is not for acceleration.
It’s for reorientation.

Before you ask your team to move quickly, they need clarity on where they’re going, and why.
They need to reconnect to what matters now, not what mattered three weeks ago.
They need a shared understanding of what “a good start to the year” actually means.

This doesn’t require a big kickoff deck or a dramatic reset.

It requires something much simpler, and much more rare:

A deliberate pause to reestablish intent.

What are we focused on first?
What does progress look like in the next 30–60 days?
What are we not trying to solve immediately?

When a manager creates that clarity early, something subtle but powerful happens.
The team settles.
People stop guessing.
Energy gets conserved instead of scattered.

Only then does speed actually help.

If you’re leading a team through your first January together, resist the urge to prove momentum through motion.
Use this week to get aligned before you get fast.

That’s how teams truly hit the ground running.

Happy New Year, you’ve got this.

Jeff