Winding Down
May 26, 2020
If you are one of the many people who have been working from home in the last couple of months, you may have adopted a makeshift working space and spend hours upon hours staring at a screen. It may also be hard to distinguish when the end of workday begins because it’s fairly easy to continue your project through dinner, or fail to tidy up the space when the clock strikes five.
I have created a little ritual to help transition from work mode to relaxation for those who need it. They are simple things you can do to keep yourself from getting fatigued, and to allow for a more enjoyable work-from-home experience.
Step One: Make a To-Do for the next day.
Often times, scrambling to finish everything in one day is not feasible. Minding important deadlines, a good habit to get into is to make a to-do list for your next work day, before the day ends. That way, any outstanding tasks don’t get forgotten and you know exactly where to pick up from when you log in next. This also helps with letting go of tasks that may weigh on your mind throughout the night, making you unable to fully relax. Writing down all the things you think you will need to do will keep you organized and in tandem, will actually make you feel accomplished. When you give your best during the day, you have every right make some room for other types of thoughts, unrelated to work. So go ahead and make some room by writing your to-dos down!
Step Two: Log off and tidy your workspace.
It may be tempting to just leave everything they way it is because you’ll be back in the same spot tomorrow, but on an unconscious level, you have never left the “office”. Log off the email, file papers away and leave your desk or whatever area you’ve occupied, clean and fresh. Doing this helps in more than one way. First, when you look at that space for the rest of the night, it will not cause any anxiety or stress because your work is packed up and out of sight. Second, you have already set yourself up for success for the next day because beginning with a neat space means better productivity.
Step Three: Do something for yourself.
Before you rush off to make dinner, treat yourself to “a moment of nothing”. If this is hard for you to do, building a smaller sequence of steps over time will help you get in this state of mind easier. For example, take a walk with your dog, kids, by yourself and just…walk. Breath in the air, enjoy the sights and sounds. Another example is sitting and watching the birds or lying in the sun for 5 minutes. A moment of nothing is a moment where you give yourself permission to do nothing - to just be. It is exactly like the asana in yoga called savasana, ultimately the last resting pose. I’ve heard many people saying this is truly the hardest part and the biggest reason they cannot slip into relaxation because they feel guilty about doing nothing. We all deserve a break, we all deserve a moment, so practice gifting yourself this time and if guilt still creeps in, remind yourself it is okay. You can also repeat these affirmations to yourself:
I deserve to rest.
I allow myself to sit and just be.
My body and mind require a moment of peace and quiet.
I am allowed to rest.
I give myself time to pause.
I am deserving of rest and relaxation.
When I give myself a moment of nothing, I am giving myself exactly what it needs.
Step Four: Finding YOUR relaxation.
At this point, I could offer you suggestions of things that I like to do to relax, but I think it is very different for every person, so I encourage you to do the things that you like! Whether that is watching TV, painting or drawing, exercising, or taking a bath, find the mode for you and explore it. It may change from day to day, and some days, you may just want to stop at Step Three! Just remember, when the sun begins to go down, you too should start to unwind.
