🌆 The Way We Wrap Up a Work Day Matters
Ritual 05: 10 ways to wind down after a day of work
The way we end a work day is just as important as how we start it. There’s a lot that’s been written about morning rituals, including the book My Morning Routine: How Successful People Start Every Day Inspired and leader profiles like this one on an incredible founder “Bob’s Red Mill’s 89-Year-Old CEO Starts His Day With (Duh) Carbs.”
Oatmeal aside, I set out to gather resources for the way we end a work day — the wrap-up rituals and actions we can take today to set us up for success tomorrow as the sun sets.
Here are 10 recommendations from leaders featured on The Switchboard and me.
⏰ Schedule Wrap-Up Time
📚 Reflect on Learnings and Track Progress
📰 Gather Your Reading List
📅 Prepare Agendas and Review Your Homework
💗 Send a Thank You
📂 Add to Your Smile File
💻 Scroll Through Your Messages
🌅 Set Your Morning Priority
🌝 Say Good “Night”
🔌 Unplug
⏰ #1 Schedule Wrap-Up Time
Block your calendar to take wind-down time seriously. Start with 30 minutes at the end of your work day to ensure you have enough time to wrap up and prepare. This time should be sacred – don’t cancel or get distracted.
Be intentional by following a few steps — first, look back at the day’s calendar and then, glance ahead at tomorrow or the rest of the week, if you have time. Eventually, you will likely extend this half-hour to a longer block to maximize focus.
📚 #2 Reflect on Learnings and Track Progress
After a whirlwind day, take time to write down what you learned, measure the progress you made and what made you happy along the way.
The end of the workday is a good time to take inventory of what you've accomplished and what your focus should be for tomorrow. My shutdown ritual is to go through my tracker of ongoing projects and make updates on new developments, what's still in motion, what's completed, and what I need to prioritize for the next day.
This ritual helps me quell the Zeigarnik effect, a tendency we often encounter in this field, where unfinished tasks can linger in our minds. Lastly, I always close the day by taking a final glance at my calendar so I don't have any unexpected morning meetings and am prepared to tackle the next day. -Christine Alabastro
📰 #3 Gather Your Reading List
Throughout the day, you likely come across many links to announcements, articles or strategies in a variety of places. Unless you’re a speed reader who can quickly comprehend it all in between meetings and deadlines, It’s not possible to pause and read them at that moment.
But keep track of all those tabs you may have opened to return to read, watch or listen at a later time. Consider a central document that tracks the titles and the links by date so you can easily look back at what caught your interest and when.
📅 #4 Prepare Agendas and Review Your Homework
As you wrap up, take a look at your calendar for the next day. Do your meetings have agendas? If not, it’s time to start drafting, if you’re the owner, or send a message to the organizer to ensure your time is well-spent in other meetings.
Take this time to also review any documents or research in advance of a conversation. This way you are prepared with the information you need to make a decision, ask the right questions and be informed about your work.
💗 #3 Send a Thank You
Did someone make an impact on you, help you find information or answer a question? Let them know with an end-of-day note of appreciation. Expressing gratitude builds trust and helps our happiness. Take a look at thank-you tips from a previous edition of The Switchboard.
Here’s more from Greater Good Magazine where Jill Suttie writes about research by Sara Algoe at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who identified “The Ripple Effects of a Thank You:”
“Researchers studying gratitude have found that being thankful and expressing it to others is good for our health and happiness. Not only does it feel good, it also helps us build trust and closer bonds with the people around us. These benefits have mostly been observed in a two-person exchange — someone saying thanks and someone receiving thanks.
Now, a new study suggests that expressing gratitude not only improves one-on-one relationships, but could bring entire groups together — inspiring a desire to help and connect in people who simply witness an act of gratitude.”
📂 #4 Add to Your Smile File
What was a meaningful moment in your day — did someone thank or recognize you? Track it in your Smile File — a box or a document with happy memories to look back on at any time, especially on difficult days. Take the time at the end of your day to remember the good moments.
💻 #5 Scroll Through Your Messages
Whether it’s email or instant messages, we’re bombarded with a lot of communications throughout our day. While it’s not always possible to reply to everyone, there’s an expectation to acknowledge the message. Look back at the messages you received and reply or let the sender know when you will. Take note of the message on your to-do list, if there’s action required.
At the end of the day, I usually have a million windows and tabs open and many unanswered chat threads. I close tabs I no longer need for the next day. I also go through my chat threads and either wrap up the conversation or let them know I will get back to them tomorrow.-Holly Nicola
🌅 #6 Set Your Morning Priority
What needs to get done tomorrow? Think ahead so that you can pick back up the next day.
I am a devoutly religious to-do-list-maker. Before I officially sign off for the day, I make a full list for the next day, and list out every meeting for the following day as well. I do this for a work to do list, and for my personal to do list!” -Caitlin Berghela
🌝 #9 Say Good “Night”
Whether you’re in an office or remote, sign off and end your day by saying goodbye to your teammates, especially if you’re using a chat tool and instant replies are typical. This will signify.
It's hard to know what people are doing when we're all remote. Letting people know that you're logging off is important because your end of day might be the beginning of someone else's day! –Holly Nicola
🔌 #10 Unplug
Walking, talking, cooking, gardening or hanging out with the chickens — take time to separate work from the day. Here’s how these leaders featured on The Switchboard unplug
As someone who works remotely it can be hard to be "home" when home and work occupy the same space. So I do one of two things at the end of the workday, both of which focus on marking the transition from work time to home time. I'll either go for a neighborhood walk with my wife or we'll go sit on our porch or in the garden.
Both of these practices require me to get away from my work computer, out of the house, and to reconnect with what's most important. I've found it helps to have a strongly flavored drink (either a beer or a Hop Tea) or to do a run or bike ride. All are things that engage one's senses in a way that's different from work time and underscores that a transition has occurred. -Caleb Bushner
Whether I am commuting in or working from home, I always need to end my day with a walk outside... preferably, accompanied by my cute dog, Louie, and cute husband, Nick. Our evening walks are truly our decompression routine, and always help us to process the day's events. -Caitlin Berghela
Cooking after work adds a dose of fun and acts as a buffer between my work and home life, a time to decompress before my kids walk through the door for the evening. I can find a rhythm in the kitchen, whether it's chopping veggies, picking herbs from my porch garden, or just boiling pasta. It’s the perfect mental break after a long day. -Sara Glick
At the end of the workday, I completely unplug from the grid for a bit. My partner and I fiddle around in our little yard, watching the chickens wander in the weeds and the ducks play in the pond. We gaze at the fading light framing the treetops and my thoughts slowly start to fall out of my head.
I come to my senses—literally. If something's weighing on me, I look at it again now. Often, it feels different from this elemental place. Maybe I see a path forward I couldn't before or accept a loss I'd been resisting. Whatever it is, it all feels simpler than before and I feel more able to start again tomorrow. -Mansi Goel
How do you wind down your work day? Let me know by replying to this email or commenting on this post. This article is part of a series on Rituals. Past editions include: Annual Report, Growth & Learning, Golden Ticket to Prioritization and Smile File.
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Explore the history of watches in the Hands of Time by Rebecca Strutthers in Esquire
Recognition is the biggest predictor of employee retention from Humu
No Reservations Allowed at this Employees Only Hotel for American Airlines in the WSJ
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Nice summary of constructive ways to wrap up a workday. The challenge, I find, is to resist the urge to do one or two more things that need doing. Part of the brain knows that reflecting and reviewing and preparing for the next day is a good idea, but another part just wants to keep whittling away the lengthy list of stuff to do or emails awaiting responses.