It’s the first proper week of January and I have to say, I am absolutely nailing it. By which I mean I have barely left the house, I am wearing the same pair of tracksuit bottoms for the third consecutive day, and I have developed an intimate relationship with the Nespresso machine.

Ah, the benefits of working from home and not being on school run duties for the first few days. Reality will strike soon though, as my lovely mother says.

The dark mornings have me shuffling around like a man in a Bovril ad circa 1987, peering out at the frost and pulling the dressing gown tighter. The heating clicks on, clicks off. I brew another coffee. I stare at the to-do list I wrote on January 1st with a steely resolve. This time, it will all be different.

Now, I’m not one for grandiose resolutions. I’ve written about this before in this very column and my position hasn’t changed. Studies show that 88% of people who set New Year resolutions fail within the first two weeks.

By February, 80% have thrown in the towel entirely. Only 9% feel they’ve achieved anything by year’s end, and I’m fairly sure 8% of that is just your man from the Diary of a CEO overachieving.

And yet here I am, surrounded by no fewer than three new productivity apps, a fitness regime dreamed up by AI and a promise to myself to give intermittent fasting one more lash. The problem isn’t motivation.

It’s that I’ve spent more time researching productivity systems than actually being productive. I’ve become an expert in the theory of self-improvement while remaining utterly unchanged in practice.

One of my favourite productivity gurus, Oliver Burkman, who has tried all the systems on our behalf, always stresses the importance of action, of just doing one small thing. Not twelve things. Not a complete life overhaul. One thing. Instead of a commitment to walk every morning from now to Paddy’s Day, try going for that one short walk.

Like, literally put your shoes on and go out the door. Now.

Collective therapy

Speaking of January masochism, Room to Improve returned to RTÉ on Sunday night and I have to say, it landed a bit closer to home this time. Having been through our own renovation recently, which in Ireland seems to carry with it its own form of PTSD, I have to say that watching Dermot Bannon guide another family through the process was almost therapeutic. A bit like watching a documentary about a war you once served in.

This season’s budgets range from €200,000 to €350,000, and even at those figures, you’re watching people making agonising trade-offs. Dermot himself has said that the methodology hasn’t changed over seventeen series, but the budgets have. In the old days, he’d persuade clients to spend that little bit extra for the dream finish. Now, that’s simply not possible for most people. You don’t need to tell me, Dermot.

The first episode featured empty nesters ‘downsizing’ in Clonsilla, three of the scariest words in the English language, if you ask me. In true Irish fashion the downsizing involved building a big kitchen extension and a man cave with a motorised roof at the bottom of the garden. I say this with love. We are a nation obsessed with houses, and Room to Improve is our collective therapy session, watching other people’s budgets spiral so we feel slightly less alone in our own madness. Maybe 2026 will be the year we’ll finally learn?

Trump is after us all

Meanwhile, while the rest of us are making modest resolutions like ‘read more books’ and ‘cut back on the chocolate Hobnobs,’ Donald Trump has decided his 2026 goals include kidnapping foreign leaders and annexing Greenland.

The ‘Don-roe Doctrine,’ he’s calling it. A play on the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which is exactly the kind of pun you’d expect from a man who makes Kid Rock look like an intellectual.

He’s threatening Colombia, eyeing up Cuba, and still banging on about buying Greenland.

When the Danish Prime Minister pointed out, again, that Greenland is not for sale, Trump mocked Denmark’s defences, saying they’d added ‘one more dog sled’ to their arsenal.

It does put your own January anxieties into perspective. US airplanes flew through Irish airspace in pursuit of a Russian tanker this week. 

After his trip to China telling them what a great bunch of lads they are, I hope Micheál Martin is sleeping with the lights on.

Sisters of Defiance

And finally, the story that has warmed my cold January heart: the three Austrian nuns, all in their eighties, who escaped from their nursing home last September and broke back into their former convent near Salzburg.

Sisters Bernadette (88), Regina (86), and Rita (82) say they were moved to the care home against their will.

So they enlisted the help of former students and a locksmith, and staged their great escape. They’ve been there ever since, praying, climbing four flights of stairs, and, in Sister Rita’s case, taking up boxing to stay fit. They now have over 200,000 followers on Instagram. Praise the Lord.

The Church has offered to let them stay, on condition they quit social media. The nuns, bless them, have refused, calling it a ‘gag order.’ The matter has been referred to the Vatican.

Sister Bernadette put it beautifully: ‘Before I die in that old people’s home, I would rather go to a meadow and enter eternity that way.’

Now that’s a resolution worth keeping. Here’s to 2026, and to knowing what matters.

And now that I’ve written about all this, I’m definitely going to go out for that walk.

Yep, any minute now.