When you work from home, it becomes very easy for the boundaries between work and rest to get blurred. This is because there is no physical distance between the two, and the lack of distance prevents one’s mind from mentally separating them.
So how do we stop work from creeping into our evenings, relationships and sleep when they might be only a metre or two away from each other?
Cal Newport’s book Deep Work calls for focused attention while working by questioning how we can get better rest in order to increase our focus.
In that book, Newport referred to a series of psychological studies that suggested that prolonged conscious deliberation does not help decision making or problem-solving but can lead to a bad outcome.
In summary, constantly thinking about work in order to solve work-related problems is unlikely to bring good solutions.
In order to circumvent this, Newport suggests engaging with the challenge and then switching off. This allows the subconscious mind to get to work, which leads to “aha” moments of revelation.
In other words, if you want to be more switched on, it’s important to switch off. But how do we do that when work and life are under the same roof?
One of the suggested strategies that I found to be effective is the shutdown ritual. This involves reviewing any incomplete tasks and making sure they’re captured so they can be revisited at the right time.
At the end of the day, it’s the best way of putting thoughts about work to rest until tomorrow.
Here’s what my current shutdown ritual looks like:
- I review all the tasks that I did that day, crossing off the completed tasks.
- I move any uncompleted tasks from today until tomorrow. Part of this is accepting that I did what I did, and declaring that anything else can wait until tomorrow. (My TO DO list is nothing fancy, just a text note on my computer).
- I review my email, flagging anything I need to respond to tomorrow
- I journal for 5 minutes on what I achieved today. This is not a checklist, it’s about noticing what was important to me – which is often something that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.
- I close my computer, tidy everything away from my desk, and clear up my workspace. This is an important part of closing the ritual. After this, my work is done, and I vow not to think about work until 8 am the next day.
With this shutdown ritual, I was able to create a sort of “barrier” to allow my mind to shift gears and not constantly worry about the things that I should be doing at work.
Having this “barrier” was useful as I didn’t feel rundown by work since I now had enough time to completely rest.
So, what does your “end of the workday” ritual look like and how does it help you rest for tomorrow?
This article originally appeared on the author’s website page