Episode 13 - Kicking 'luck' to the kerb and ending your day with intention!

We follow up last week's 'start of day' routine focus with its neighbour and bedfellow - the 'end of day' routine. These two powerful rituals can add up to making all the stuff that happens in your day manageable and easier - and leaving you more time to do the things you WANT to do. We give you ideas, pointers, places to look at and plenty of information to get you on your way to setting up your own end-of-day routine.

 Some of the stuff in there is:

• How your 'start of day' and your 'end of day' routine support each other and support you getting stuff done
• Why Forbes.com say how you end your day is critical - in this article
• Michael Hyatt says, "The right activities before you sleep can set you up for success the next day" in this article
• The two groups of 'end of day' routines - the workday one and the dayday one
• Why it's even more important to have a defined end-of-day process if you do work which doesn't have its own clear end to each day
• THE END OF WORKDAY ROUTINE:
• A great template for a 7-step routine from todoist.com - the full article is here
• 1. Clean up your physical and digital workspace
• 2. Review your to-done’s
• 3. Write out tomorrow’s to-do list
• 4. Set yourself up to “Eat Your Frog” first thing in the morning
• 5. Confront the things you’ve been putting off. (Break them down and choose one 'next step' for tomorrow)
• 6. Set a time to end your workday and stick to it
• 7. End on a high note:
• Forgive yourself
• Show gratitude
• Do someone a favour
• My personal end of workday routine (from 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done) looks like this:
• Spend 5 minutes asking yourself these key questions:
• How did my day go? What went well? What were my challenges?
• What did I learn today? About myself? About others? What do I plan to do - differently or the same tomorrow?
• Who did I interact with? Anyone I need to update? Thank? Ask a question? Share feedback with?
• THE END OF DAY (DAY) ROUTINE:
• Set a 'turn off your screen' time - and stick to it
• What Scientific American say about - using screens before bedtime
• Coffee - did you know it has a 'half-life'? - The effect of caffeine on sleep
• Wind-down time, take it seriously
• Take the time to work out how long you need to start your wind-down process. Mine is 45 minutes between starting and going to sleep
• Journal. Take time in your wind-down space to write down:
• What went well for you today
• What you learned today which developed you or improved something
• Three things you appreciate or are grateful for. The more basic, the better