The Daily Shutdown Ritual

Days can completely fly by and become a blur, running together into weeks, months, and years. Without clear boundaries between work and personal time, especially when working remotely, it becomes all too easy to find yourself still responding to Slack messages at 9 PM while your dinner sits cold in the kitchen.

After burning out at the end of 2021, I developed a systematic approach to maintaining balance and making consistent progress. The cornerstone of this system — the practice that provides the most value for the time invested — is my Daily Shutdown ritual.

What the daily shutdown solves

The Daily Shutdown ritual addresses several common challenges:

• Creating a clear boundary between work and personal time
• Ensuring important work doesn’t slip through the cracks
• Reducing mental load by “clearing your RAM” before ending work
• Maintaining awareness of progress and priorities
• Preparing effectively for upcoming meetings and deadlines

Even (perhaps especially) when work is particularly busy, taking time to pause and process at the end of each day helps prevent that perpetual feeling of being underwater.

The three-step process

My Daily Shutdown happens about an hour before I plan to stop working and consists of three distinct steps:

Step 1: Close out work

This first step is about reviewing everything that happened during the day to note progress, identify next steps, and uncover any loose ends. I think of it as “mental garbage collection.”

While still at my desk, I review these daily artifacts:

1. My Analog Today card with the day’s plan
2. Calendar meetings and any resulting action items
3. Journal notes about important tasks or emotional reactions
4. Unanswered Slack messages and emails
5. Project notes in Obsidian
6. Open browser tabs

For browser tabs, capturing them into my system is crucial for being able to close them. I ask: Why is this open? What project does it relate to? What action item exists? Most end up as Markdown links in my Obsidian project notes.

Before leaving my desk, I close everything on my computer using a Keyboard Maestro automation triggered by my Stream Deck. This physical action signals to my brain that the workday is ending.

Step 2: Reflect on today

The next step is to process how I felt about the day by considering two questions:

1. What went well today? This question is vital for me. I tend to focus on negatives or where I let people down, so I deliberately celebrate any wins: kind words from someone, project progress, or other successes.

2. What didn’t go well? I aim to be objective and identify learning opportunities. When something feels particularly difficult, I examine the emotion behind it and look for evidence. Often, negative feelings point toward lessons or areas for improvement once I scale back the emotional response.

Sometimes I move from my desk to a comfortable chair in my office to do this, which creates another physical transition signal. I’ll admit that I rarely get to do that these days, though.

I also don’t always write down my answers unless something particularly important emerges. The act of reflection itself helps process the day and prepare for tomorrow.

Step 3: Plan tomorrow

With emotions processed and a clear picture of the day’s events, I can plan tomorrow effectively. This planning helps me shift from reactive to proactive mode and consistently check my priorities.

I use my Analog Today card system, along with my journal, calendar, and the current day’s card to mentally walk through tomorrow. On the card I note:

1. Admin work and communications at the top
2. Scheduled meetings with their times
3. Project work and major tasks
4. Personal reminders for transitioning to home life

The limited space on the Analog card is intentional — it forces me to be realistic about what I can accomplish in a day rather than maintaining an endless task list.

Tips for building the habit

Developing a Daily Shutdown routine takes time and patience. It’s simultaneously the hardest and most effective piece of this system. Here’s what helped me establish the practice:

1. Create a “no new inputs” boundary about an hour before ending work. Unless truly urgent, incoming requests wait until tomorrow. Most complex questions deserve fresh eyes anyway.

2. Remember that doing 1% of the shutdown consistently beats occasional perfection. Even 10 minutes of reflection and planning yields better results than skipping it entirely.

3. Accept that the work is front-loaded. The more consistently you practice the shutdown, the less cognitive overhead it requires and the less time it takes. You’ll develop increased awareness of project status, emotions throughout the day, and upcoming events.

A final note on planning

Many people resist planning because they worry about diverging from the plan. However, the act of planning itself provides more value than perfectly executing that plan. Planning helps you anticipate potential challenges and adapt quickly when circumstances change.

The Daily Shutdown ritual has been transformative for my productivity and wellbeing, but it required patience with myself and embrace of imperfection. Start small, be consistent, and adjust the process to match your needs.

Your daily shutdown might look different from mine — maybe you prefer planning in the morning, or you need different review categories. What matters is building a sustainable practice that helps you maintain boundaries and make consistent progress.

Let’s look at weekly planning and review next.