The original study that popularised this Mental Model acknowledged that: “One concern with our findings is that people tend to engage in activities prior to (or during) temporal landmarks that harm goal pursuit, and our findings might simply reflect a rational attempt to offset these bad behaviours after temporal landmarks.”

In other words, there is an argument that success attributed to the Fresh Start Effect might simply be a form of Regression to the Mean. So, for example, you might eat better in January as a reaction to your overindulgence in December. That said, there is evidence that positive patterns of behaviour persist outside of holidays associated with overindulgence. 

The studies to date have also focused on socially constructed Temporal Landmarks that have a relatively neutral psychological response — such as beginnings of the week etc.. Other options that might have more emotive responses — memorials of someone’s death, divorces etc — might have other implications which have not yet been explored. 

Finally, there might be an element of Social Proof or the Bandwagon Effect behind the apparent greater propensity of people choosing and even succeeding more with their goals at the beginning of a new year. That is, with more people committing to change, it is collectively easier to maintain and achieve that change. 

Google searches for ‘diet’ peak times.

Dai, Milkman and Riis, who have spearheaded much of the research in this area, demonstrated that more people tend to search for ‘diet’ after a holiday (10%); at the start of a new week (14%); and especially at the start of the new year (82%). Though this behaviour might be the result of compensation after overindulgence as discussed in the Limitations section. 

Students attending the gym. 

The same research team as above identified that students were more likely to attend the gym at the start of a semester (47% more); in the start of the new year (12%); and in the start of each week (33%). 

The same day, different name - over 300% difference!

And the same team again organised a split test, asking two groups if they would like to be reminded about their goals at a future date. The date was identical with both groups, however, with group A they called the date ‘the third Thursday in March 2014’ and group B they called the date ‘the first day of Spring’. 

The reference to the first day of Spring proved a powerful Temporal Landmark, allowing the group to assign that reminder to ‘future them’ and causing an increase in sign-ups to the reminders by 354%.  

Aaron Sorkin, not obsessive-compulsive, just keen on fresh starts. 

Writer Aaron Sorkin describes how he creates his own mini Temporal Landmarks of sorts: “I've got plenty of quirks. I go to an office early in the morning. Early in the morning is really good writing time. I take anywhere between six to eight showers a day. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not a germaphobe: it's all about a fresh start.”

As with so many Mental Models, it is difficult to attribute an origin to a single person when the idea tends to reflect an evolving body of thought. I was tempted to pay it to Katy Milkman and her Wharton Uni team who have helped popularised the idea via the paper cited below. Though the concept was raised as early in 1988 by Michael Shum in his paper The Role of Temporal Landmarks in Autobiographical Memory Processes.

Shum himself cites Theodule Ribot playing with this concept, if not the term itself, as early as 1882. In the end, we paid it to Shum for capturing the term and the broader concept. 

The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behaviour paper was first published in June 2014 in the Management Science journal. It has grown in popularity and is a favourite paper widely quoted in the media during the New Year period. One of the key authors of this paper was Katy Milkman, who also spearheaded workaround Temptation Bundling and whose website is a font of useful information. 

The project planning research noted in the overview was from the University of Chicago’s Getting things done: How does changing the way you think about deadlines help you reach your goals?