How to switch off from work
Have you ever considered why some people are much more able to handle stress than others?
It turns out that one of the most important factors is how well you’re able to switch off after work — something a lot of our clients are struggling with when we first start working with them.
Why is it important to switch off?
There’s nothing wrong with thinking positively about work or mulling over an interesting problem that you want to solve.
But when you can’t stop thinking about work, you wellbeing, relationships and productivity suffer. As one of my clients recently put it, ‘Neither my colleagues nor my family see the best of me.’
Psychologists have found that people who are able to disconnect from work experience:
•Less work-related fatigue and procrastination
•Far greater engagement at work, which is defined as vigor, dedication, and absorption (i.e., “flow”)
•Greater work-life balance, which directly relates to quality of life
Why is it difficult to switch off?
One reason it can be difficult to switch off is a psychological quirk called the Zeigarnik effect. Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik noticed, in 1920s Vienna, that waiters were excellent at remembering orders that still needed to be served, and instantly forgot those that had already gone out.
This is useful when you’re a waiter, but means that we can experience intrusive, anxious thoughts about anything we haven’t yet completed.
It’s never been more difficult to do one task at a time at work because, on top of the usual distractions from other people in the office and phones ringing, etc., emails and notifications on your phone now make it very tempting to switch between tasks before they’re finished.
One result of this is that, by the end of the day, you might have 20 browser tabs open, ten half-written emails and an important project you’ve put off yet again, which means that you’re likely to be thinking about these tasks in the evening.
Another result of multi-tasking is that you become slower and more stupid. One study found that switching back and forth between tasks makes both of them take 40% longer. This is known as a ‘cognitive cost’, and it’s due to the mental energy that’s required for your brain to adjust to a different activity.
When you feel distracted and overwhelmed, you make worse decisions, which means you’re more likely to take on more than you can handle and leave tasks unfinished.
How to improve your ability to switch off:
1. Single-tasking
Most people I work with have now adopted the Pomodoro technique, which involves switching off all notifications and choosing one task to focus on for the next 25 minutes. You then have a 5-minute break. Repeat this in blocks of 4 and then have a 20-minute break. People have told me that they get more done in 2 hours of Pomodoro than they did in the whole of the previous day.
2. Completing tasks
As far as possible, do not start a new task until the current one is either complete or you’ve reached a good place to stop.
3. Clustering tasks
An effective way of reducing the ‘cognitive cost’ of task switching is to cluster similar tasks like emails and phone calls together.
4. Meetings with self
When your day is back-to-back with meetings, it can leave you feeling stressed and overwhelmed, with several unfinished tasks. One technique to counter this is to schedule two half-hour ‘meetings with self’ in your diary that you can use to catch up on any unexpected tasks or admin that you need to do. [K2]
It’s easier to tell someone you’re not available because you have a ‘meeting’ than because you need some time alone.
5. End-of-work rituals
Washing up your coffee cup or closing down your laptop in the same way every day sends a signal to your brain that it’s time to switch off from work mode. Likewise, you can hide anything you have at home that reminds you of work so that your thought processes aren’t triggered.
6. Meditating
Meditation trains your attention to be more in the here and now, and to think less about work when you’re not working. It also improves your concentration, making it easier to single-task. I meditate at 6pm as a way of rounding off the working day, and it really helps me to switch out of work mode.
7. Cooking dinner
A study found that people who cook dinner rather than having a microwave meal can switch off more easily, probably because it’s an activity that can absorb your attention completely.
Conclusion
Being able to switch off from work is as much about how you spend your time at work, as what you do afterwards. Many people are obsessed with time management and trying to maximise how they use of every second of the day. In fact, what we should be obsessing about is the quality of our attention, and the amount of attention we give to the people and problems that matter to us most. That will result in you bringing your best self to work, and to your friends and family.
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