How is your day going? (And going and going…).

When lines between work and home life are blurred, which is often the case whether you are working from home or in the office, work has a way of spilling over into evenings and weekends.

You start to feel as though you’re always “on”. This pressure depletes your attention and your energy. And attention and energy are exactly what you need to do your best work and be present in your personal life.

If you find your mind wandering and being stressed about an unfinished task when you’re out on a family bike ride or in the middle of an online yoga class, it may help you to establish some boundaries for shutting down at the end of each day.

A shutdown ritual, as described here by computer science professor and author, Cal Newport, is essentially a set routine of actions you perform at the end of each work day to finalize your day and signal to yourself that your work day is complete.

One of the main benefits of the shutdown ritual is having a well-defined end to your workday.

If you want to truly optimize your productivity, having a specific end time will help you to prioritize and focus on your most essential work. After all, we make more efficient use of a limited resource. And the resource in this case is your time.

For example, consider protecting the last 30 to 60 minutes of your day, when your energy levels are lower, to tidy up some smaller tasks. It’s helpful to keep a checklist of these tasks handy, so you can quickly check them off and stay focused.

This type of “closing” ritual, will help cue your transition from work to home priorities, so your lines between work and home will feel less blurred. And this practice is effective whether you’re working from home or in the office.

Exactly what is on your list depends heavily on your role, but here are some examples:

✅Update your to-do list (or as we like to call it, your Master Action Plan)

✅Plan for tomorrow

✅Celebrate what you have accomplished today and rather than dwell on what didn’t get done, take a moment to enjoy what you did achieve

✅Clear your inbox

✅Track your time, if this is relevant to your role

✅Put items away so you can leave your desk clear

The key is to give yourself comfort in knowing you have done what you can do today and what didn’t get done has been captured for tomorrow (or the day after). This way your brain won’t have to deal with work-related matters throughout the night.

I like the tip shared in this blog, which suggests if you are in the middle of your shutdown ritual and remember something that simply can’t wait until tomorrow, you should go ahead and complete the task and then restart your shutdown ritual. “Because once your shutdown ritual is over, and a work worry comes into your head, you want to be confident to say to yourself: I went through the shutdown ritual. I know that everything important has already been accounted for. Therefore, there is no need to worry. And move on with your night.”

Yes, there will always be more to do and the nature of modern work and technology is such that we have the capability to work wherever, whenever. But we need to balance this ability carefully with our need to disconnect, rest and recover, so we can return as our super-charged, most productive selves the next day.

I hope this encourages you to establish your own shutdown ritual. What will you include in yours?

Related reading: 6 truths your team wishes you knew