Noisy Deadlines

routines

I've always been an employed worker, working for the public or private sectors in construction. I don't have any experience running a business or being self-employed, so what I will discuss below reflects my full-time job experiences.

We all have ONE life: we experience the world around us all the time regardless of what we are doing: reviewing a spreadsheet at work or reading a book at home. All these experiences affect our lives no matter what. But we can identify our areas of focus: they are the multiple different facets of our lives. They are like the hats we use on our day to day: professional career, family, self-development, health, friends, finances, etc.

So, I've always thought that managing actions and projects of all these different facets should be together in one tool or system. If I'm doing the weekly review, I should be looking at them all at the same time, for example.

But recently I've identified that I needed to create some separation between my work and personal lives.

I noticed that I was not able to rest at the end of the workday or over the weekend. I was constantly feeling anxious about my work tasks, I had difficulty clarifying my stuff and I was feeling overwhelmed. While doing regular therapy/counselling for a year, I realized I needed to do focus on three things:

  1. Daily planning: plan my day at work to have a more structured routine.

  2. Cut off from work at the end of the day, creating a smoother transition from work to personal activities in the evenings.

  3. Create a separation for my weekends: work-week shutdown.

Phase 1: Daily Review: Plan the Day!

I started with a regular Daily Review in the morning to plan the day. I have this as a recurring all day event on my calendar.

After some trial and error, I was happy using Cal Newport's Time Block Planner to help me do this planning. That does not mean I abandoned GTD: I added this tool to my GTD toolset. It helped me create a more structured routine for organizing my day, and since it is linked to blocks of time, I became more aware of my capacity to tackle my next action lists.

Phase 2: Shutdown Routine

Then, after a few weeks practicing Time Blocking regularly, I started to think about the end of the day routine. It's another daily review but focused on shutting down the day. I was inspired by Cal Newport's shutdown routine and that was a total game changer for me. This practice fuelled my time blocking, which in turn optimized the way I organize my tasks and projects.

I could actually have a restful evening at home with my partner, because I knew whatever I had to do at work was clarified and organized and ready for me when I got to work. But I still felt jittery over the weekends, and I wondered what was wrong: enter the weekly review!

Phase 3: Separate Weekly Reviews

Because I was enjoying this work versus personal mindset separation, I realized that I also needed a work shutdown routine at the end of the work week.

I usually schedule my weekly review on Sundays, but I was feeling this huge resistance to do it, mainly because I didn't want to look at my work projects on a Sunday morning! Then I would avoid it altogether, skipping even my personal review. A light bulb appeared in my mind last October: what if I do a work weekly review on Fridays?

Tah-dah! I tried it and it worked!

Conclusion

My journey towards a more balanced and productive work-life dynamic led me to think differently about my routines. Separating these 2 main areas of focus (personal x work) does not mean they are not integrated. I have thoughts or ideas about work when I'm doing the dishes, but I know I can capture them in my inbox for them to be sorted out when I'm at work. And vice-versa, I capture personal thoughts at work that I will process later. That's one of the core principles of GTD!

After practicing GTD for years, I've never had this ah-hah moment about the weekly review: why not have 2 separate reviews? It seems trivial now I that I think about it, but I guess I was stuck with a fixed mindset.

The three tweaks I mentioned brought me more clarity, making my evening more relaxed any workdays smoother, marking a significant shift in my mindset and productivity.

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

After spending some time using a Time Block planner and paying closer attention to how I kick off and wrap up my workdays, I've had some cool insights:

  • Apps Aren’t the Culprit: The problem is almost never the apps I'm using, it is how I'm using the system and my own habits.
  • Review Regularly: Things will fall through the cracks if I don’t do my reviews periodically.
  • Time Blocker Magic: Planning the day with the Time Blocker has been a game-changer for maintaining focus. It’s totally fine to tweak the plan multiple times during the day (just like Cal Newport suggests).
  • Shutdown Ritual: The end of day shutdown routine is non-negotiable—it guarantees a smooth transition from work mode to relaxation.
  • The Nirvana app works like a charm for me, it's distraction-free, simple, light and powerful.

I renamed my start and end of day routines and now they look like this:

Morning: Plan the Day (do my Daily Review)

  • ☀ Open physical notebook and insert the day
  • ◕ Check Calendar: what do I need to do today? is there anything I need to prepare for?
  • ⛳ Process Inboxes (E-mail, NirvanaHQ): Clarify: Is it actionable? What is the context – Organize: is it part of a project? Energy? Time?
  • ✅ Check Next Actions List and move items to Focus list
  • ⭐ Check and update my Focus List
  • ⏰ Open my Time Block Planner and plan the day. Schedule time for defining work if needed
  • ⚡ Engage: Filter context and begin work!

End of Day: Shutdown Routine

  • Capture: Quick mind-sweep of tasks I failed to capture and add them to the Inbox.
  • Process: Meeting Notes from the day.
  • Check off any completed tasks.
  • Review my Calendar for tomorrow: Do I need to prepare anything? What things do I want to achieve tomorrow? (Flag them to the ⭐Focus list, add notes on my Time Block Planner)
  • Say to myself “Shutdown Complete!” and mark the checkbox on the Time Block Planner.

I added the morning Daily Review and the Shutdown routine to Nirvana as a daily recurring task. They show up in my Focus list every day:

Snapshot in time: What is on my Focus list today

These routines are inside the notes section in Nirvana as a checklist so I can check them off if I want to:

On some days, things go smoothly, and on others, chaos reigns.

On the good days, I take a solid 30 minutes to plan my schedule down to the nitty-gritty. But when chaos strikes on the bad days, I glance at my calendar, block off meeting times, and dive headfirst into urgent tasks. After lunch, I do a quick ‘post-mortem’ assessment, tweak my time blocker, and figure out where to focus my energy for the rest of the day.

I’ve learned that aiming for perfection is counterproductive. While checklists serve as a helpful template, I play it by ear and adapt as necessary.

One of the best insights I had this year is to embrace flexibility while still having some structure.

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Work is a huge source of stress and anxiety to me. That's why I have all sorts of coping mechanisms and tools to help me feel less overwhelmed.

There is one habit described by Cal Newport that has been extremely useful to me: the Shutdown Ritual. It is also described in more detail in his book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World”.

I block off 30 minutes on my Calendar at the end of the day to focus on this ritual. Sometimes it takes me 10 minutes, sometimes it takes me half an hour. The idea is to have something to nudge me into doing it, even if I do it partially. This is my recurring Calendar event:

Calendar event for my Shutdown Routine

I have the following recurring action in my to-do app (Nirvana):

Shutdown Routine Checklist

So this action shows up in my Focus list everyday, and I always move it to the bottom of my Focus list, so I'll get to it last. It goes like this:

==> End of Day: Shutdown Routine ☄

  1. Process Meeting Notes from the day: I have a paper notebook that I carry with me wherever I go around the office, especially in meetings. I take notes, as much as I can. At the end of the day I look at the notes and check if there are any actions I need to add to my Nirvana Inbox or notes I want to add to my projects notes.

  2. Capture: Then I do a quick mind-sweep of tasks I failed to capture and add them to the my Nirvana Inbox. If I have enough time I will process and organize them. If not, I leave them to be processed during my morning start-up routine the next day.

  3. Check off any completed tasks: sometimes I can only find the time to mark a task as completed at the end of the day, and it feels good! 👍

  4. Review my Calendar for tomorrow: I ask myself “Do I need to prepare anything?”. It gives me an idea of what lies ahead.

  5. Finally I ask myself “What things do I want to achieve tomorrow?” I flag those next actions to the ⭐Focus list in Nirvana.

  6. Say 'Shutdown Complete'! : this is Cal Newport's suggestion. I don't actually say it out loud, but I say it in my head.

If I don't have time to do the complete routine, I will prioritize doing only Step #2: Capture. That's the most important step!

Doing a quick mind sweep can make all the difference! I can leave work and transition to my evenings feeling less stressed and confident that whatever I have to solve at work will be there patiently waiting for me the next day. There's no reason to loose sleep over it. By taking a few moments to sweep through my thoughts and jot down any lingering tasks or ideas, I'm able to mentally detach from work and fully engage in my personal time.

Regularly doing the complete shutdown routine brings powerful results. As I review my day's accomplishments and outline tomorrow's objectives, I feel more organized and I also find myself approaching challenges with a clearer mindset.

Post 09/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge!

#100DaysToOffload #100Days #Productivity #GTD #routines #work #checklist

Thoughts? Discuss... if you have a Write.as account or Reply by email

By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.