Two Daily Routines Every Coach Needs For Starting & Ending Your Work Day

Do you struggle to switch gears between work and personal life, leaving you either unfocused in the mornings or stressed out in the evenings? In this episode, Stephen shares two simple, yet powerful, 5-minute routines that can help you seamlessly transition between work and personal time. 

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• A small, powerful change to your morning routine that sets the tone for a productive day.
• How to quickly disconnect from work so you can be fully present with family or unwind stress free.
• A game-changing mindset shift that will help you transition between work and personal life with ease.

Transcript

Stephen Box: 0:00

If you struggle to focus on work task first thing in the morning, or you struggle with disconnecting and letting go of work so that you can focus on your personal or family time in the evenings, then today's episode is going to be for you. I'm going to give you the two five minute routines that will help you to seamlessly transition between work and personal time. And that's coming up next right here on Own Your Calendar. Welcome to Own Your Calendar. The go to resource for online business owners, coaches, and course creators who want it all. A profitable business and the time and energy for yourself and the people and things you love most. I'm your host Stephen Box and I'm here to help you build the systems and habits. that allow you to escape the chaos and start living life on your terms. Hey, welcome to another episode of Own Your Calendar brought to you by Unshakable Habits. I am your host, Stephen Box, and today we're talking about transitioning between work and personal time. This is such an important topic for us to talk about because if you don't create these transitions or these boundaries between your work and your home life, then it can have severe consequences. For example The American Psychological Association suggests that people who don't properly unwind from their work are more likely to experience lower life satisfaction in relationship conflicts. Additionally, there was a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology This suggests that individuals who lack boundaries between work and personal time are more likely to experience work life conflict, which negatively affects both job and life satisfaction. So this is super important that we create these boundaries or these routines. And there are actually seven different routines that I suggest people implement into their day. But in particular, we're going to focus on two today, which is the pre and post work routine. And the first time that I really started learning about the importance of this was a few years ago at a client of mine who shared with me that for whatever reason, when he got to work first thing in the morning, he really struggled to be focused and it led to him getting behind on his work. He was not as effective as he could be. And then in the evening when he got home the stress levels were so high that he would actually end up yelling or raising his voice anyways to his kids or to his wife and he was just very short tempered and he didn't like it. He didn't want to be that way. So he was asking me for help on managing his stress better. And what we did was we created these two routines for him. Something he could do in five minutes or less, when he got to work, first thing in the morning, as well as when he came home, or in his case, because he didn't work from home because he actually drove, we came up with something he could do in the driveway, just a 30 second type thing he could do in the driveway before going into the house, and that really helped him out. Now for people who work from home, it is a little bit more of a challenge, I think. Because when you are traveling to work, you have that car ride. You can put on some music, you can do some different things. It's easier to me to get yourself mentally shifted on the way to work, or it's easier to decompress on the way home. But when your home office and the rest of your house are literally only a few steps away from each other, it can be a much more difficult transition. For And that's where I think the value of these two routines really shines through. So let's dive into these real quickly. Let's start with the pre work routine. If you're like a lot of people, your house is probably a little chaotic first thing in the morning and it can make it difficult to Search your day off with that calmness. So I do recommend having a good wake up routine and morning routine, but those are separate from what we're about to talk about right now, which is your pre workout routine or your pre work routine, not pre workout. Excuse me. So a couple of things here that I really believe in, I'm just going to really speak in principles here because I think that giving you too many specific examples of like, Oh, go do this. I would be trying to tell you what has worked for me or what I've seen work for other people and try to force it into your life. And I think the specifics aren't as important, in all honesty, as the principles themselves. If you implement the principles, the specifics aren't as important. But if you need help with these specifics, I'm always glad to help you with that as well. So the first thing I would do is Make sure that you have some kind of physical or environmental reset. I try to, at the end of the day, make sure that my desk area is physically cleaned off, but I still like to have some kind of a transformation or some change to my physical environment. So for me, I use a desktop versus a laptop. And on Windows 11, you actually have a option to create multiple desktops and you can put different backgrounds on them. So I have a background wallpaper that is specifically for everyday home life use. And then there's my wallpaper that has my company logo on the background. That's my work wallpaper. So if I sit down on my computer, I see the work wallpaper. It automatically says, Hey, we're in work mode right now because And when I transition it over to the other wallpaper, it's okay, now we're home life, right? No, we're out of work mode. And so by having that physical transition there, it just enables me to see that. So that's the first thing. But if you are someone who is maybe not as apt to clean up your desk at the end of the day, Even something as simple as just cleaning your desk off first thing in the morning can really make a huge difference. And if you're doing it every day, it shouldn't take you more than a few seconds to do. You can also do something physical, like just doing some nice stretches or do something to get your heart rate up for a few seconds. And again, this doesn't need to be big, right? This can be 10, 15, maybe 30 seconds. You can also do some mental clarity stuff. I know a lot of CEOs are really big on taking a few minutes to spend some time in prayer or meditation, doing some deep breathing, visualizing, stuff like that can really help to get some mental clarity and focus. Once you've done that, the next thing I would do is set some purposeful intention. And I love Donald Miller and his book, um, Hero on a Mission. Couldn't think of the name of it for there for a second. He talks about the fact that every day he sits down and he has his goals. So he's looking at it. What's my one year goal? What's my goal for this month? What's my goals for this week? He looks at all that stuff. Now, I'm not necessarily a fan of doing every single one of those things that he talks about doing, but I like the concept. I like the idea of sitting down, reviewing your goals, getting a mental purpose and clarity on what you're doing that day. And I personally like to set three tasks for the day. And one of the things that I also love to do at this time is write down. What I'm thankful for today. Write down my three gratitudes. It just puts me into a positive mindset right away. And then finally for me, I like to have a work trigger and I use these in many different areas. So for example in the gym is actually where I developed this idea of a work trigger from because in the gym I will Get ready to say, baby, do a heavy set. And as I'm getting ready to lift the weight, I've checked my form. I've got myself positioned. I just quietly say to myself, let's go. And it's that mental reframe of hearing those words in my head. That makes me know, okay, we're about to lift some heavy stuff. We're about to do some work, right? And so I apply that same thing. to my work, except for here, instead of having a phrase that I use, which I could very easily just use a phrase here, but I have a very specific song that I like to play and I just put on my headphones and I listen to that song. And it gets me mentally in that frame of mind to start working. And I know that when I hear that music, it's go time. Finally, the last thing I do, and this is really all just a part of this trigger thing too, is I have on my desk a little manual timer. It's just like a little battery operated timer. And I set it for whatever my work block is. So if it's a 30 minute work block, 60 minute, 90 minute, whatever. I set that work block and I put all my notifications on silent for everything, computer, phone, everything. So that way, I have that focus of that timer there as well. So that's an additional trigger for me. Now on the other end of things, transitioning, Out of work at the end of the day, back into home life, right? Kind of closing the door on your work day. So to speak, I think this is a very important thing to do to have some kind of physical closure to the day. So maybe that is changing the desktop background. Like what I do, maybe that is closing your laptop. Maybe it's only having your office space. For your office. Don't do anything else in there. I violate that one myself. So not saying you have to do that but maybe that would work better for you, but it has some kind of transition there. Ariana Huff, the founder of the Huffington Post, I remember reading that one of the things that she does is She goes off and reads a book at the end of the workday, and that's like her physical transition from work back into home life. Another really great thing you can do is engage in a little bit of mindfulness, but also some reflection. So sit down at the end of the day, and this is something I love to do. I like to do this at the end of the day period, but I also like to do this as a mini session at the end of my workday. Which is to sit down and write all the things that you accomplished that day and the things that you are happy about getting done or the opportunities that you're happy about that day. Because when you do that, it gets us out of that negative mindset. Because I think for a lot of us, and I'm going to speak for myself, okay? And maybe you can relate to it. But I know for a long time, I would get focused on all the things I didn't do. And so by doing this, it helps me to focus on what I did do, which makes it so much easier to shut off my brain and not worry so much about the unfinished task and instead focus on what did get done and feel better about letting go of work for the day. And then finally, I like to have a physical transformation here as well. So. At the end of the day, after I've done my gratitude journaling, after I've switched over the desktop, I like to put on some music and I like to go get a good workout in. This is my prime workout time. I know that some people like to work out first thing in the morning. That's fine. For me, I'm more of an evening afternoon workout person anyways. So it works for me, but some kind of, again, physical transformation where you can move out of work mode back into family mode. And it could be something as simple as taking a few nice deep breaths and imagining every exhale that you're just letting go of the stress of the day. Those are the two five minute routines. Now, maybe they take you more than five minutes. Maybe they take you 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Maybe they can only take you two minutes. It really just depends on what you need. I would encourage you play around with it. See what works for you. Don't get stuck on you have to do one thing or another. It's just having those transitions. And again, just to Summarize this for you because I know I was just going through them here, but just to summarize this for you is really about Some kind of not quick. Sorry. Actually, I did leave one off. That's why I was saying that for the pre work routine I also do suggest a lot of people will always tell you start with your biggest hardest task first. I disagree with that philosophy I think you should always start with something really small, really easy to do, that's a quick win. And when I was giving the example earlier about Donald Miller and how he reviews his goals and everything, for me, that's my quick win. So every day, if I sit down and I review what my goals are, I need to check that off my list, it's an easy to do, it's an easy win, and it's hers to build momentum for me. So, number one is make sure that you have Your physical environment prepared for a work day. Number two is get mental clarity for yourself. Calm yourself down, do some breathing, some prayers and meditation, whatever you need to do to get that mental calmness. Then set that intention, get that quick win. And then at the end of the day, it becomes about practicing that gratitude and reflection on your day. And doing something that is physical to transition you out of work mode back into the rest of your day. Be mindful about that, right? Take some time, a nice deep breath or some exercise, just something, reading a book. Just something that's going to help you make that transition. And then finally, you need some kind of physical closure on the day. So whether that's shutting down the laptop, changing the wallpaper on the screen, or whatever the case may be. So if you implement those two five minute routines into your day, you will find it so much easier to seamlessly transition between work and personal time. Before I wrap up here today, I do want to say thank you for tuning in and listening today. I really do appreciate that a lot and I want to help you to unlock your next productivity breakthrough so you can transform your habits for more energy and focus. By inviting you to book a free habit breakthrough call with me. And you can find the link for that down in the show notes. Also, if you want more content like this, I am getting back to posting on social media. Again, I've been away for a little while taking a break, but I'm getting back into it. Uh, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and on YouTube at Unshakable Habits. And also make sure that you join us on our next episode where we're going to have a special guest, Mr. Mark Hollins, who's gonna talk to us about how fear sabotages success and what you can actually do about it. Until then, this is Stephen Box reminding you that today is a great day to break free from the chaos and start living life on your terms.