We're Doing The Calendar Wrong!

One bleak morning in February 2025, I was sitting on the top deck of the 253 bus to central London and something was bothering me.

Why do we put leap days at the end of February?

It didn’t make sense to adjust for an accounting error at the beginning of a year; surely you’d put it at…the end? And that’s when it hit me.

We’re doing the calendar wrong.

First, a quick science primer

Down here on the lower plane we have two key astronomical ways to measure time: a) how long it takes the earth to rotate once upon itself (a day), and b) how long it takes the earth to orbit its star (a year). Annoyingly a does not slot neatly into b.

It takes the earth 365.242 days to orbit the sun — and that means that once every four years the earth gains a day on its solar journey. Were we not to account for this, our calendar would slowly drift out of sync with the seasons. Like a video where the audio track is at the wrong frame rate, it would be slightly annoying at first and quickly become unworkable.

It’s extremely impressive that humans solved this problem in 450BCE without even a full concept of the globe. But it doesn’t explain why, after understanding the need to insert an entire new day into the calendar, they put it in February.

In any kind of measuring system, logic suggests you place additional information at the end, right?

I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, if you didn’t know this already:

The romans who were smart enough to accurately calculate the orbit of an object they themselves were sitting on, without so much as an abacus, were also smart enough to inject this extra day at the end of the year — back then February was the last month of the year!¹

Many, many, many moons ago, the year began in March.

And the more I thought about this, the more it made sense to me.

The case for starting the year in March

This year runs from March 1st to February 28th/29th.²

The calendar would sync with the seasons. Perhaps the most profound benefit is our year would birth, rise, flourish and fall in synchronisation with the four seasons. This would bring us all, organically, more in tune with the rhythms of the natural world.

Spring is the season of rebirth, of new beginnings. The days are growing longer, filling with potential, the air is growing warmer, enticing us outdoors to interact and collaborate.

Summer is the season of high energy and long days. Like the agricultural workers of eons past, we spend our time in fruitful collaboration and creation.

Autumn is the harvest season, where the fruits of our hard work can be collected and enjoyed. It’s also a time to begin slowing down, while also squeezing the last juice out of those long, warm days.

Winter is the time for rest, hibernation and solitude. A time to eat, to sleep, to read. It is not the time to start a new gym habit. Which leads me to:

The calendar would sync with the rhythm our bodies. Do grizzly bears spend January making insanely ambitious resolutions, starting a new diet and doing press-ups? No, their asses are asleep, as they should be. If we were any good at listening to our bodies, we would not be waking up at 7am on January 2nd to run five kilometres in the snow, or trying to lose weight at a time of year when our bodies are trying, instinctively, to retain fat.

Humans, gonna human.

Imagine living the year deeply connected the organic rhythms of your own body, collaborating with its energy, not fighting it. There’s a reason our new years resolutions often fail: we’re making them at the wrong time!

The months would finally make sense. This is minor in comparison, but still: September, currently, is the ninth month of the year, which is odd because sept means seven. Meanwhile, oct, nov and dec all mean eighth, ninth and tenth, respectively. Starting the year in March, the names of the months would actually match their position in the calendar!

January is bleak. Let’s make no bones about this, January is the worst month of the year — in the northern hemisphere anyway. The days are cruelly short, the weather is awful. The month contains Blue Monday and posts the highest number of suicides in almost every country on earth. The Law of Association is a thing: what subconscious message do we all absorb about the year ahead when this is how it starts?

In 2025, The New York Times let make this argument on their TikTok channel!

How to live by your own calendar

I think I make a compelling case, but of course to actually change the official calendar across the globe would be an expensive logistical nightmare with few immediate benefits.

But just because the world runs on one calendar, does not mean we can’t live on our own terms!³ Of course, when interacting with the outside world, I use the Gregorian calendar: I’m not out there insisting this is February 2025; but I now personally set my year to run March-to-February.

It’s a very simple adjustment that just requires playing winter differently. I intentionally begin to slow down my commitments through November and December and, from around the winter solstice, begin a time of restful hibernation.⁴

I do not make new years resolutions or begin any new habits, routines, diets, projects or anything like that in January. Instead I let myself sleep in if I want to, eat what I feel like, drink. If I feel like being lazy then that’s what I do. I’m storing energy for the spring.

Depending upon my life circumstances I make the hibernation one of intentional solitude for at least one of the months. January is perfect for this. It’s is a great month for finding quiet, going inwards, connecting with the deeper parts of yourself.

February then, the last month (as originally intended), is either an opportunity to go deeper and stiller; or it marks the time to begin to look forward, to make those plans, to build up excitement and anticipation for the year ahead.

I have practiced a form of wintering for three years now and I can tell you, there is nothing like the fire in your bones as spring approaches. Fully rested and sensing new beginnings, I’m like a coiled spring, ready to explode with energy.

And then one day in early March you’ll notice it. You’ll step outside and you’ll smell that smell: The warm blossom in the air that announces a new year has begun!