A 3-Minute Habit for Leaving Work at the Office

As you’re inching through gridlock traffic on your way home from work, while you’re trying to whip together dinner, with every office-related one-liner on your favorite sitcom, it creeps into your head.

You should check your email, just to make sure your boss didn’t send something urgent.

What’s the point of tomorrow’s meeting? Am I prepared enough? Maybe if I just check this one thing…

There’s so much to do tomorrow. I’ve got so much on my plate. I need to make sure I…

All these cluttered thoughts thrash around in your head, making it impossible to stop thinking about work when you’re off the clock, and really, that’s not fair to anyone (yourself, those around you, your coworkers who see your furrowed-brow glare as soon as you step into the office, because you’re sick of the day ahead before it’s even started).

It can make it hard to sleep at night.

One thing, I’ve found, makes it a lot easier to stop frantically thinking about all the things you do — and don’t — need to do at work, and it barely takes three minutes of your time:

Before you leave work each day, draft your to-do list. Have one list that’s a complete mind dump: every single thing you need to do in the foreseeable future, so it’s all out of your head, then stick a Post-It on top with your “Priority List” — 3-5 things that need to get done tomorrow, in the order you should tackle them.

After I’ve identified the next day’s priorities, I add in any meetings I may have for the day ahead, inserting them into the Priority List based on what I think I can tackle before said meeting. Here’s an example:

• Program social media
• Outline project proposal
• 11:30 — Q1 Review Meeting
  • 11 — Review meeting agenda; jot down any questions to ask/action items that should be addressed during meeting
• Write organizing story
• 2 — Staff Meeting
  • Prepare notes/questions

Doing this just before I leave each day organizes all of those jumbled thoughts, and gives me the peace of mind knowing I have a plan for the day ahead and have prepared for what’s coming, so as soon as a fleeting “I should check my email…” thought springs to mind, I can dismiss it. (There are times when curiosity compels me to check anyway — d’oh! — but generally, learning this trick has been life-changing for me.) No more sleepless nights. Except for the occasional times when I’m as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve about a big announcement or project launch, but that kind of insomnia’s a lot more pleasant to deal with.

What do you do to make sure you don’t take work home with you? We’d love to feature your best practices and tactics!