(upbeat music) Cal, I struggle most with shutting down my day. I recently became a software architect, I'm still constantly task switching between my old development responsibilities and learning my new architectural role, such as keeping up with new projects and technologies inside our organization. I can usually perform some deep work in the mornings, but my afternoons are filled with status calls and virtual meetings to solve multiple small technical issues.

At 4 p.m. I'm drained and finding the energy to clean out my inbox, organize my task list, and put a bow on the day, feels like a chore. I don't have a problem turning off my work, it literally doesn't even pop into my brain when I leave the office.

Any tips on closing out the day? Could I maybe shut down at lunch and leave the rest of my day for meetings with colleagues? Or do you have any other advice? - Well, that's a good question, it's a common issue, that the afternoons get so busy that when you get to the end of the day, you can't face the onslaught of information you have to deal with, it's too exhausting, it takes up too much time.

I can have two pieces of advice to give to you. Number one is what you suggested in your call I actually think is a good idea. I think it's completely fine to have a reckoning with your inbox and your plan that doesn't happen at the very end of the day.

Lunchtime is not a bad idea. You deep work in the morning, at lunchtime, you process through the emails that have been sitting in your inbox, you look at your plan for the week and update that, you look at your calendar, you get your arms around everything, and then you turn your attention towards the status calls and meetings that take up the afternoon.

It's a great idea, it's actually gonna give you more energy as you get towards those meetings 'cause you don't have this open loops looming in the back of your mind while you're trying to pay attention to what someone's telling you. The other piece of advice I'm gonna give is, every time you schedule a status call or a meeting, schedule for right after it time to process and make sense of what was discussed in that meeting or what was discussed in that status call.

So you put something in your calendar, you put that right in your calendar right after it, 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how big the meeting or call is. This allows you to actually close all of the loops that are opened with each of these back and forth interactions to go through it and say, okay, what did I just commit myself to?

And where am I gonna put that? And where should I write that down? And do I need to put some more notes on my list that now I have to get back to this person or me put a reminder on the calendar? You wanna figure out what do I need to do?

Is there some emails I need to send out to get a process started? Do it there, make that part of your meeting. When we separate the two, this also leads to overwhelm because what happens then is if you have four status calls and meetings scheduled in the afternoon, you end up with four status calls and meetings worth of open loops and things that have to happen and deadline reminders all mixed together in your head and now it's 4.30.

You're like, I can't even disentangle all of this. The thought of it is giving me anxiety sweats, right? It's built up to be too much and forget all the other emails unrelated that have been building up, it's too much. But if after every meeting you say, I'm now gonna spend time working on it, that a meeting is a two part affair.

There's the part where there's other people involved and there's a part where I deal with it, that all gets handled and you get closure and you take a breath, then it's the next one. And then when you get to the end of the day, there's a lot less to deal with.

You've dealt with the stuff that those things generated and all that's left now is maybe emails that have arrived unrelated to your meetings during the day. And if you wanna handle those the next day at lunchtime or what have you, I think that's fine. So do those two things, do your official shutdown earlier and schedule a processing period, piggybacking with every single other thing that goes onto your calendar.

And I think you're gonna find the shutdown is gonna be painless and you're gonna come into it with much more mental clarity. All right, that's feeling. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)