Have you ever struggled to leave work, at work, at the end of the day? Or struggle to keep your productivity train going from day-to-day? We’ve been there, but the good news, there’s a way to beat the anxiety of forgetting something or the defeat that comes with a loss of productivity, and it all starts with properly structuring your daily schedule! This post is totally dedicated to educating you on how to end your day so you can feel good when it’s time to go home!
Why You Need a Daily Schedule "Routine"
There are tons of people that will tell you having a structured daily schedule is essential to be productive or successful, but what they don’t tell you is that there’s something so much deeper to it. Accordingly to Michael Kerr in his book, “Humor at Work” a structured schedule, especially at the end of the day, will drastically impact the level of stress and happiness that you carry home- and who doesn’t want to increase their level of happiness and decrease their stress when they get home? Sign me up.
Per Michael “Dr Woody” Woodward (an organizational psychologist), by creating a clear “end of day” process it allows you to psychologically transition away from work and into your personal life. Cue NOT feeling guilty for leaving work at the end of the day and feeling EXCITED to come home. For those of you that are commuters, it was recommended by Forbes to try planning your commute home. By having something to “look forward to” you can alleviate the anxiety and stress that naturally tend to build at the end of the day.
What You Should Include in Your EOD Routine
So, now that you understand WHY an end of day schedule is important, let’s talk about what should be included in your end-of-day daily schedule! It’s really easy to catch yourself adding a lot to your end of day routine, just remember, the more simple the better! And what works for you, doesn’t always work for someone else. However, the below items are a great jumping off point and considered typical in an end-of-day routine. An important call out – there is a difference between preparation and planning, and a successful routine requires both. Planning is cognitive and preparation is action.
Brain Dump
After a long day it’s easy to feel like you have a million thoughts running through your head. These “running thoughts” are what drive anxiety and stress, so alleviating that at the beginning of your “end of day” daily schedule helps ease you into the rest of it! I personally love utilizing Google sheets for this so I can go back and organize them later with headings, etc. for an outline.
Stick to Your Office Hours
Setting office hours is an important part of a well-rounded routine. Not only does it ensure that others are respecting your time, but it also ensures that YOU are respecting your time. Setting an “end-of-day” time for yourself gives you a deadline to work towards! Humans will ALWAYS take as much time as they give themselves to complete a task.
Answer as Many *Important* Emails as Possible
Over on Instagram, I’ve talked a lot about how to manage emails when working, but the biggest take away of it all is to set up specific times that you’re going to answer emails during the day. I recommend at least twice a day (I personally answer them first thing in the morning and for 15-minutes at the end of day), but find what works for you just be mindful. I only spend about 30-minutes to 1-hr a day answering emails, MAX! The end of the day is always reserved for answering time sensitive or important emails before leaving work. This helps you alleviate the stress of forgetting to reply, or missing, an important email.
Schedule Tomorrow
Scheduling your tomorrow the day before does a couple different things, but (like others) it helps again alleviate the fear of the unknown. This helps you avoid appointments or meetings sneaking up on your and eating up time that had already been delegate elsewhere. I keep a handwritten planner and digital planner. My digital planner is my “always up to date” book of truth and my written planner functions for helping me plan my “tomorrow” at the end of each day. My written planner is also where I time block in my focus hours (typically 2-3 hours per day).
Create a NEW To Do List
The secret sauce of your “end-of-day” daily schedule is your to do list. I go super in-depth about how to create the perfect daily schedule in a different post so for the sake of this one, I’m going to keep it *shorter* 😉
- Migrate any incomplete tasks from “today” to your tomorrow list
- Prioritize your tasks to complete the most important ones at the beginning of the day
- Be specific – vague tasks = failure
These tasks should be a mixture of preparation and planning. Update your to do list and re-organize. My recommendation is aim for: 3 work priorities, 3 personal priorities, and 3 side-hustle priorities. By having a plan, you avoid being a victim of other peoples agendas and needs!
Kicking off the day without a plan opens you up to the dangers to reactive work - letting other people's demand dictate what you do with your day.
Aside from deliverables, your to do list should also include any meetings or appointments. This helps you avoid the pitfall of thinking you have 8-hours to work, when in reality it’s closer to 4-5. This also gives you the reality check to take control of your calendar when you realize you have more meetings and deliverables than are accomplish-able in a day. Be realistic with what you think you can accomplish. It’s better to cross all of a handful of tasks versus only a few on a huge list. This also creates momentum to continuing rolling with your success train!
Clean Up Your Workspace
Working with clutter is extremely difficult, so cleaning up will help you start your next day off the right way. This includes your physical AND digital work spaces. Consider:
- Removing or moving any folders or items that are sitting on your desktop or downloads file
- Empty your trash can
- Always shutdown your computer
- Remove any trash or debris off your table top
REWARD YOURSELF!
Celebrating everything that you’ve accomplished in a day is a really important. Not only do you fully deserve to celebrate your accomplishments but that positive energy is extremely contagious! Not only does it follow you home from work (cue feeling happier!) it also helps stoke the fires of your rolling success train, which is what we want! Starting the next day off on a high from the day before is always easier than starting off with a low.
As previously mentioned, these are by far the ONLY things that need to be included in your end of day daily schedule, but they are some great ones if you decide to. Just don’t forget, the goal for an end of day routine is to lessen the anxiety and stress that are created by a new, unknown day, and increase your level of happiness as you’re going home.
Feel like this is something that would be perfect for you, but you’re not sure how to even start or feel overwhelmed trying to prioritize what should or shouldn’t be in your schedule? That’s where we come in! Schedule a no strings attached call and see if our 2:1 coaching program would be the right fit for you!
