Have you been in a jewelry shop at the time of their closing for the day? It’s quite dramatic. There is a sudden spurt of activity and in that hustle, all the valuables from the displays, get checked, packed, and moved to the vault (I guess), and soon the place that oozed opulence looks dreary! They have a well-coordinated closing ritual.
Most of us also have some sort of closing ritual that we do when we close for the day, but if it is thoughtfully planned and regularly done, it can provide invaluable benefits.
The first step is to write down the actions that you would like to do at the end of every day. You are doomed if you thought you would remember! You might want to write that at a place that is easily accessible – a spreadsheet on your computer or a listing app on your mobile. What you write in it is very specific to you but here are few ideas:
- Fill in the timecard, if you are into this.
- Update the journal (you should maintain one) where you record whatever was done on a day. You may want to reflect on how the day went and note down any new ideas as they occur to you in your to-do list.
- Look at the next day’s calendar.
- Look at the “Drafts” folder for any mail that was mistakenly remained unsent.
- Update your networking document with any new connections that you made
- Check if your backup service is running all right.
- Shut down a computer.
Start with a set of actions and keep tuning it as per your needs. We then need to stop our work a few minutes before, to do these closing actions.
I had earlier written a post about having a morning ritual and if you have one, here is an interesting idea – During the morning ritual, you may want to create day-specific closing actions, if any. This will give you a fail-safe mechanism to not miss some important action in the chaos of the day!
Subscribe to my newsletter, at bottom of this page, to get stories like this and more, directly in your inbox!
