Work-Related Routines I’m Loving Right Now
This essay initially appeared in the Monday morning newsletter on 10/23/23.
From time-to-time, I love reflecting about what routines or rhythms are working well for me at the moment.
Routines and rhythms are subjective to so many factors – and really do ebb and flow based on what else is on our plate, our season of life and other factors. That’s why I think it’s fun to capture in real-time what’s working well and where there might be area for improvement.
Right now, there are a few work-related routines I’m really loving. I’ve done each of these routines for varying amounts of times and find they offer differ benefits, but at least for right now, they are all making a positive difference for me in terms of how I move throughout my workday.
I’m hoping by sharing them this morning they might help you too or inspire a thought that leads to a newer, simpler, more enjoyable way of doing things this Monday. And if there are any routines or rhythms you’re loving right now, I’d love to hear about it!
What’s Working Right Now: Work Routines Edition
1) The first is going into the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays. For a while, I’d been going into the office on Wednesdays and liked the mid-week shakeup. Then in September, my office moved to a 2-day in-office routine and my team designated Wednesday-Thursday as our in-office days. I didn’t have much of a preference, but WOW do I really like this rhythm. I enjoy easing into the week at home. I naturally find myself with more mental bandwidth at the beginning of the week, so it’s great being able to just sit down and work without needing to worry about commuting, etc. Then, Wednesdays and Thursdays are a welcomed change, followed by being excited to work cozily and casually at home on Friday. It’s like my weeks feel fuller somehow? I think having the days feeling different from each other makes the week as a whole feel more meaningful. Loving it!
2) The next is an email management idea I heard from author, professor, podcaster Cal Newport. In this recent episode of his podcast Deep Questions, he shared some thinking behind why “knowledge workers are “tired all the time.” His thinks what’s causing the tiredness is not the obvious answer – it’s not the volume of work, but rather the constant context switching.
You’re answering an email about one project, then another email about a different project, then have a meeting about the first project, then back to an email about something else. The shifting back and forth, coupled with the ad-hoc, on-demand messaging (Teams chats, Slack, emails, etc.), is what’s driving the main source of exhaustion for knowledge workers. Listening to this, I felt like Cal was describing my workday. So, I was interested to hear some of his proposed solutions. My favorite was his suggestion to “single thread your inbox.” Let me explain.
Maybe you have some time in between meetings, or it’s the end of the day, or you’re coming back from a long weekend, and you have a lot of emails to catch up on. Cal’s suggestion for this situation is to open a blank Word document next to your email and use it to capture, organize, and clarify relevant details while you go through your inbox.
Email by email, you make your way through, typing up a quick summary in your document, stream of conscious style (couple of words). You can process and figure out what the email means later, but for now, you are just capturing them in your “digital memory” (the Word doc), so you can get through all the e-mails in your inbox, quickly, without worrying about forgetting things.
Then, once you’re through your inbox, you make sense of what’s on your plate. You can group like things together, decipher the small tasks from the big task, prioritize, and then start to execute. You’re still answering the same amount of emails, but the EXPERIENCE is much less exhausting.
I’ve been doing this for a few weeks and it’s a gamechanger. When I’ve sorted through my emails before, my approach would be to go through each email 1:1 – process it – and act on it, before moving to the next. I now understand why I would walk away from those 30 minutes of emailing feeling more overwhelmed than when I began – the context shifting was too much. Instead, this approach allows me to gather relevant info in a central location, while leaving space in my brain for when it’s time to execute. As Cal writes, “It’s amazing how much more efficient you become when you’re not clogging up your brain’s working memory with open loops and unresolved obligations.” Beyond efficiency – it’s just so much more enjoyable. You can read more on this idea here. Highly recommend!
3) The third is something I’ve done off and on for a while to mark the end of my workday. Even though I’m liking my hybrid work setup right now, I still struggle with defining a buffer between the end of work and the start of personal time. What I find useful is to have some kind of “ritual” to signal to myself that it’s time to stop working and transition into my evening. Right now, that looks like writing down “three things going well” in my planner.
Our brains are hardwired to focus on what’s going wrong vs. what’s going right. Especially in a work setting, I think it’s natural to focus more on what problems need to be solved vs. what’s working. That’s why I’m really enjoying this proactive prompt of asking myself what’s going well, at the end of the day. Even if it’s been a tough and stressful day, I can still usually find a few things that went well, such as a presentation going smoothly, feeling in sync with team members or a meeting getting canceled (the best). Reminding myself of them at the end of the day is really making a different.
What do you think? Are there are work – or life! – rhythms and routines you’re loving right now?