Do you have a winding-up ritual at the end of the day, when it comes to your work? Something like closing all the files and open windows on the laptop, shutting down the laptop and clearing your desk? This was an activity that was inevitable in the pre-pandemic days when you were working out of the office. It signified a closure – in a physical and mental sense. In a mental sense, the activity usually allowed us to reflect on the day (things done and not done, and things lining up for the next day), as we unplugged the laptops, wound up the cables and repacked our laptop bags. But with remote working, this end of the day ritual has disappeared for most of us. All we do now is just lock the screen of the laptop and move to the other side of the room, to switch our frame of mind – our mental windows – albeit a bit unsuccessfully.
The winding-up ritual allowed those moments – for a cognitive ramp down at the end of the day and also a ramp up, the next morning. It helped us gain some distance, when we reopened the files and windows the next morning, giving a fresh perspective, to begin with. It truly used to feel like a fresh beginning, after an end. A resume, after a brief pause. With that ritual gone, there doesn’t seem to be an end or a pause. Fresh beginnings derive power and charm from the preceding ends and closures. Without them, what you work with is residue, resulting in residue bias and a lack of new perspectives.
I have been trying to incorporate a winding up ritual since last week. And the results are small but effective. A closed laptop discourages me to open it, late-night for something. It tells me that I can wait until morning. The winding-up ritual essentially is a boundary we choose to draw, to tell ourselves “enough”. And it also tells our family that we are crossing over, to be fully present with them.
All our daily routines need boundaries. And any boundary is signified by a full stop, not by a comma.