You're at the dinner table. Your kid is telling you about something that happened at school and you're nodding in the right places.

You're not there. You're in a conversation you had at 4:20 that didn't land properly, running it again, working out what you should have said.

Your body got home at 6:40. The rest of you is still in the car park.

Most advice on this will tell you to take a bath, do some deep breathing, or pick up a hobby. None of that is wrong, exactly. It's just aimed at the wrong thing.

You can't switch off from work because your brain is holding open decisions, not because you're failing to relax. Unfinished thinking doesn't respond to relaxation techniques. It responds to being written down, given a time, and closed.

That's the fix. A shutdown routine that closes the loops, not a wind-down routine that tries to sedate you into ignoring them.

Why "just be present" is useless advice

Because it's an instruction, not a mechanism.

Telling a tired leader to be present is like telling someone to stop hearing a smoke alarm. The alarm is going because something is genuinely unresolved. Your brain isn't malfunctioning when it keeps serving up the 4:20 conversation. It's doing its job. It's flagging an open item that has no plan attached to it.

The moment you give that item a plan, the alarm stops.

You already know this from the good days. Ever had a day where you finished something properly, closed the laptop, and actually felt fine at dinner? That wasn't because you were less tired. It was because nothing was hanging.

So the goal isn't to relax harder. It's to finish the day properly.

The twelve minutes that change the evening

Here's the routine. It takes about twelve minutes and it happens before you leave, not after you get home.

That distinction matters more than anything else in this article. If you wait until you're on the couch, you've already brought it home. You're now doing damage control in front of your family.

One. Empty your head onto paper. Not the laptop. Paper, or a notes app if you must. Everything that's still rattling around. The conversation. The number that looked wrong. The person you need to chase. Don't organise it, just get it out. Two minutes.

Two. Give each one a next action and a time. Not a solution. A next action. "Call Sarah about the forecast" and "Wednesday 9am." That's it. Your brain is not asking you to solve it tonight. It's asking you to prove it won't be forgotten. A time is the proof. Five minutes.

Three. Name the one thing that matters tomorrow. Just one. Write it at the top of tomorrow's page. When you walk in the door tomorrow morning you will not have to decide what to do, which is the moment most people lose the day. Two minutes.

Four. Say the day out loud. In the car, before you start it. Three sentences. What happened, what you'll do about it, what's done for now. Sounds a bit ridiculous. Do it anyway. Saying something out loud closes it in a way that thinking it doesn't.

Five. Change something physical. Get changed. Have a shower. Walk the last block. Something that tells your body the context has changed. Three minutes. For me that’s putting my phone in the bathroom, having a shower and getting ready for family time!

The phone is a symptom, not the disease

Everyone's answer to this is "put your phone in a drawer."

Fine. Do it. But be clear about what you're solving.

If you put the phone away without closing the loops, you haven't become present. You've just removed your ability to check, which for a lot of leaders makes the anxiety worse, not better. You'll sit there at dinner thinking about what might be in there.

Close the loops first. Then the phone in the drawer is a relief rather than a punishment.

That said, two phone rules worth having, because they're cheap and they work.

No notifications from work apps after your finish time. Not silenced. Off. A silenced notification still shows up as a number on an icon, and you will see the number.

The phone charges somewhere that isn't your bedroom. Buy a $15 alarm clock. The first thing you look at in the morning sets the tone for the whole day, and right now it's probably an email from someone in a different timezone who had a bad night.

Australia gave you a legal right to do this in 2024

Worth knowing, because a lot of people still don't.

Right to Disconnect laws came into effect in Australia in August 2024. Employees can reasonably refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact outside working hours.

I'm not raising it so you can wave legislation at your boss. I'm raising it because of what it means if you're the one leading a team.

The law changed. The culture in most businesses didn't. And the reason it didn't is that the culture is set by what leaders do at 9:40pm, not by what's in the policy document.

If you're sending emails at 9:40pm, your team reads that as the standard, no matter what you've told them. They don't hear "Dan's just clearing his head before bed." They hear "this is what it takes to get ahead here."

Schedule send exists. Use it. It takes one tap and it stops you quietly teaching forty people that evenings are optional.

What to do when the loop genuinely won't close

Sometimes there's a real thing. A decision you can't make yet, a conversation that's going to be awful, a number that isn't going to improve by Friday.

Writing "call Sarah, Wednesday 9am" doesn't fix that, because the anxiety isn't about forgetting. It's about the outcome.

Two things help.

Write the worst case down in full. Not vaguely. Specifically. "We lose the contract, revenue drops by X, I have to have a conversation with the team in March." Unnamed fears are infinite. Named ones are usually survivable, and once you've written it down you can start planning against it instead of circling it.

Give it a designated worry slot. Sounds daft. Works. Put fifteen minutes in tomorrow's calendar called exactly what it is. When it surfaces at dinner, you're not suppressing it, you're deferring it to a meeting it actually has. Your brain accepts a deferral far more easily than a dismissal.

The thing nobody mentions about being present

Being present isn't a state you achieve. It's a decision you make repeatedly, badly, and then again.

I still get it wrong. There are still nights I'm sitting at the table with my head somewhere else, and Markie can tell within about four seconds.

The difference now is that I notice it in the moment rather than three weeks later. And when I notice it, I've got something to do about it, instead of just feeling guilty and promising to be better.

That's the whole upgrade. Not perfection. A shorter gap between drifting and catching yourself.

Twelve minutes before you leave. Start tomorrow.

Not sure which parts of your week are draining you and which are filling you up? Take the free Energy Audit. Ten minutes, and it gives you an honest read on where your energy actually goes.

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I stop thinking about work when I get home?

Because your brain is holding open decisions that have no plan attached to them. Psychologists call these unresolved intentions, and they keep resurfacing until they're either completed or scheduled. That's why relaxation techniques feel like they work for about four minutes. Writing each open item down with a specific next action and a specific time is what actually stops the loop, because it gives your brain evidence the item won't be lost.

How long does a shutdown routine take to work?

The list itself helps on night one. The habit takes around two to three weeks to feel automatic. The biggest reason people abandon it is doing it at home instead of before they leave, which is too late. It has to be the last thing of the work day, not the first thing of the evening.

Is it bad to check work email after hours?

Checking isn't the issue. Responding is. Every out-of-hours reply teaches the sender that out-of-hours contact works, and if you lead a team it also sets the standard for everyone watching. If you want to look, look. Then use schedule send so the reply lands at 8am and the norm stays where you want it.

Dan Richards is a leadership coach and the founder of Cut Through Clarity. He works with founders and senior leaders across Australia who want to win at work without losing their health, their family or themselves. Based on the Gold Coast, Queensland.

Related reading: How to Protect Family Time When You Work Long Hours · Who's Looking After the Leaders? · Losing Friends Because of Work

Join The Weekly Cut

I write one note every Saturday. What I worked on, what I learned, what it might mean for you.

It's written at the end of my week for exactly the reason this article describes. Putting the week down on paper is how I stop carrying it into the weekend. You get the useful bits.

One note, once a week. No spam, no funnels.

Join The Weekly Cut

Source

Fair Work Commission, Right to Disconnect, in effect in Australia from August 2024.