025. What's your end of work routine?
Every issue of Moment comes with a question designed to gently nudge you towards working well: making your mental health part of your self-employed business plan.
025. What's your end of work routine?
Whilst our job-based chums fight battles with their employers about where they should be working from, our battles as the self-employed are still perhaps a little closer to home - and whilst there are lots of options available to people which aren’t working from home (as we’ve covered in our recent guide), many of us are still very much home-based, and need techniques to establish boundaries between work and … not work.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a dedicated space at home where you can work, and more importantly, walk away from at the end if your day - there is already a quite powerful psychological effect of literally getting up and walking away from work.
Not everyone has that physical separation though, so exploring other very tangible techniques which also create a emotional sense of “closing down for the day” are important to help you say to yourself: “I’ve finished work, I am giving myself time away from work now”.
There are many techniques which are effective, and almost all of them combine two discrete parts: a physical action and a mental action.
The physical action is the actual thing you do to draw the line. Closing the laptop for instance.
The mental action is the mindset shift you choose to make. Telling yourself you’re done.
It’s important to do both of these, the physical act is tangible, but giving yourself permission to close down is just as important, and that you don’t return to the laptop, to check the emails, to just get another thing done.
This is why the idea of the “working from home commute” is a powerful concept - it's both a physical act, leaving the house for a short time - and the mental act of saying “I’m going from home to work now”.
Or the idea of the “put it away box” where you put all of your work items into a cardboard box and out of sight, and saying “My work has been put away, I can finish now”.
Everyone needs to find their own routine, but combining a physical and mental action to draw your day to a close is essential to work well, and ultimately be prepared for another day of work tomorrow.
So use this Moment to ask: what’s your end of work routine, and how do you close down the day both physically and mentally?
Leave a comment below to share your reflections,
or visit Leapers to discuss the question further.
Things we read this week:
Money made me more productive - Anna Codrea-Rado on her greatest time-saver
How designers really feel about porfolios - Design Week
Think BIG - new book from Grace Lordan
How I learned to really listen to people - Guardian
If you talk, you live well - Guardian
Five years after going self-employed - Hayley Lewis
What are you reading? Share in the comments.
Leapers has been supporting the mental health of the self-employed for almost four years, and we’ve done it without any funding, just kind support from our members - people like you. Help support our work by making a one-off or regular donation, every penny helps us help more people.