OREANDA-NEWS. February 01, 2016. It’s January, the official Monday of the year, and you’re already beat. The holiday excitement has worn off, and the frigid temps have started to creep into your morning commutes. Let’s face it, you’d rather spend those after-five hours curled up on the couch than face the Resolutioners at the gym -- but your lofty December 31st goals are looming over your head like that dark weather system rolling into town.

Well let me share a little secret that may just help you beat those January blues and energize your new year’s goals:

Work overtime.

You heard me right. Working overtime will help you dive head first into those new year initiatives and silence the procrastinator inside of you praying for a mid-season snow day.

How on earth will working more hours cure my Monday-like blues, you ask?

Don’t worry, I was a skeptic at first, too.

Here at SalesLoft, the Marketing team works on 60-point “sprints,” two-week bursts of workflows, broken down by a point system to delegate time, urgency, and importance to each element of each team member's task list. And with Rainmaker 2016 right around the corner, we knew our sprints were going to be a little more intense than normal.

But when our VP of Demand Gen, Kevin O’Malley, challenged the marketing team to a 90-point sprint the second week back from holiday break, jaws dropped and heads shook heading into the sprint planning meeting.

Now, just a few days in, I’ll be the first to admit: I feel more energized than ever. Sure, I may be singing a different tune when day 9 or 10 rolls around, but I think there’s magic behind this notion of pushing harder when you’re least motivated.

What’s that saying? “I’m more productive when I’m busy.” It sounds contrary, but it’s a well-known phenomenon that more work causes people, across the board, to hustle harder, be smarter with time management, and reach for higher daily goals than they ever thought possible.

Just last week, our engineering team released nine new product features in seven days. With everything from simple design changes to user-centric feature improvements, the SalesLoft dev team cranked out some major product updates in just the first few weeks of January.

It may seem like an aggressive approach to the first month of the year -- but, so far, it’s working out way better than simply dipping our chilly toes into the shallow end of 2016.

And it’s not too late to set some New Year’s resolutions, either. Trish Bertuzzi’s goal for 2016?

“To have even more conversations with buyers. Real conversations with real people about real business problems. Social and online is great, but this is the year the conversation makes a comeback. C'mon... talk to me!”

Look, I know it’s harder than ever to motivate yourself (or your team, if you’re a manager) during these long, cold winter days. But trust me when I say: push harder. Make more calls. Send more emails. Work harder than ever to get a headstart into the new year, and knock Q1 out of the park. Trust me, your Q2 will thank you.

What new best practices and technology will you use to transform your business this year? Download How to Close More Deals in 2016 and get started.