The weather wasn’t the only thing that was especially hot this Summer; so was the debate on social media as #QuietQuitting went viral and raged like a forest fire.
‘Quiet quitting’ is a phrase coined in a TikTok video that argued for an end to the kind of endemic overworking that erodes wellbeing and leads to burnout. It was seen in some quarters almost as a call to rebellion;
“For some, it simply means quitting on hustle culture, which is a great thing. But for many others, it means just going through the motions, accepting a lack of engagement, joy and purpose in our work as a long-term solution to burnout.” Arianna Huffington
The arguing about the rights and wrongs of quiet quitting took place, to some extent, on generational lines as it is the young in particular who are pushing hardest for new ways of working and living. Here’s a recent caustic tweet which hints at this:
“The biggest thing standing in the way of remote work is a generation of managers who would have to rebuild their social life outside work.” Chris Herd
Ouch. The mood echoes the famous line from ‘Network’, a film that was made several decades before Generations Y and Z were even born; “WE’RE MAD AS HELL AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!!” And rightly so. It’s tough out there.
If you’re a practitioner of GTD® you will already be aware that it offers tools – other than quitting - with which to tackle problems in the domain of overwork. Just being aware of GTD’s core principle – that your mind is for having ideas and not holding them - is a start. If you capture, clarify and organise your commitments outside your head then they won’t plague you so much on the inside.
I’ve also written previously – e.g. here - about how GTD can help you have better conversations with your managers about what ‘done’ looks like so that they don’t need to physically keep you in line of sight to assure themselves that you’re doing what you said you would do. This is a potentially transformative step if you and your colleagues ever want to go home without feeling you have to sneak home, as the phrase ‘quiet quitting’ suggests.
But what if your bosses aren’t yet enlightened enough to get everyone trained in GTD? There are still ways in which you can use GTD yourself to minimise the feeling that work never stops and one of them I’d like to suggest in this blog is to develop what I like to call a ‘Closedown checklist’.
As the name suggests, the closedown checklist is a series of steps you can take on a daily basis when it’s time to clock off in order to draw cleaner edges between working and not working. This is important because, at the end of the day – see what I did there? - we’re not machines that can run 24/7 but we are like machines in one respect – turning us off and turning us back on again regularly is necessary to reset us.
It's vital to be able to simply stop but for most people it’s not that easy, unaided, so here are some suggestions to get you started on a closedown checklist. They are divided loosely into two types – things that help you get your mind off your work and things that help you get your mind on your life after work;
Switch Off Work
- Do a GTD Mindsweep – get everything that’s still rattling around your head from the day out of it. It doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it, just capture it and you’re more likely to let it go knowing that it’ll be safely waiting when it comes time to re-engage the next day. As David Allen famously says, “You can only feel good about what you're not doing when you know what you’re not doing.”
- Perform a final ‘emergency’ email scan - note the name because this is just checking for anything that absolutely can't wait until tomorrow, rather than spending dinner time clearing your inbox. The goal is to get your inbox off your mind by knowing it’s safe to do so, and the trick is to know what ‘emergency’ means before you start. Urgent sign off needed? Yes. Bob’s just impatient? No. Check out this blog from 2013 if you need some inspiration for training others to be more patient.
- Linked to the above… switch off alerts. Put the phone away. Et cetera. Research has shown just having devices around which might contain work can tempt you to think about it.
- Check tomorrow's calendar so there are no surprises in the morning and so you’re not spending half the evening wondering if there might be. You’ll chill better and sleep better.
- Clear up your physical workspace – nobody likes a mess in the morning. Having a folder for ‘work in progress’ can be helpful here, either to pick up where you left off or, if you’re at home, to grab and go if you’re going to be in the office tomorrow. In GTD it’s called an ‘Action Support’ folder and it prevents you from continually seeing physical reminders of things that it’s not helpful to see once you’re switched ‘off’ for the night.
Switch On Personal
- Remind yourself about any helpful habits or routines that help you end the day (including the checking of the closedown checklist!). Mindfulness meditation, walking the dog, going for a run? What’s that thing for you?
- Check ‘buckets’ which might contain meaningful things you want to be reminded about as you transition out of work mode such as the school website showing what homework the kids have been set today, or the TV schedule to see what’s on tonight.
- Check any action lists that become ‘live’ as you switch into a different role in your life. One of the most common starter lists that we teach people to implement in GTD is the '@Home' list. It could contain mundane stuff such as the chores that you need to do or that others need you to do, or it could be fun stuff that you like to do in your downtime – indeed, my colleague, Tim Sismey, actually has a list called ‘@Downtime’ that does exactly what it says on the tin.
- Check any lists that introduce a bit of spontaneity and fun into your world. Another colleague, Marcus Ramtohul, gave a great example of this recently when he revealed that he has a ‘Date Night’ ideas list in his GTD system, and I once had a coaching client who put ‘Buy flowers for the wife for no reason’ on his lists. Gentlemen, I salute you. That’s world class relationship management right there.
Everyone's closedown routine will vary and evolve over time but if you don’t have one, start by asking yourself; What do I want to get off my mind at the end of the day and what do I want to get on it instead? Then go from there.
In Japan there’s a lovely phrase, ‘Otsukaresama deshita’, which you say to co-workers to acknowledge the end of each working day in the office. It means something like “Well done everybody. It was a good day but now I’m off home”.
Everyone should be able to say that, even if they can’t pronounce it.
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