Take Some Time to Unwind | John's Tips 2024W52

At the end of most years I really need to turn off the chaos and unwind. I encourage you to do the same.

So that’s it.

52 blogs in a year, all with (hopefully) some useful tips attached.

I have some updates and announcements about what 2025 looks like for me and this page, but I'll keep that for its own dedicated post over the next couple of weeks.

For this, the final tip of the year, I encourage you to switch off from work, even if only for a couple of days.

I've already followed this advice this week and because of that, this blog is probably coming too late for people who are already returning for work, but it will stand to you in the future.

Switching off is hard because ingrained habits often make it difficult to do so. I know firsthand how tempting it is to check Slack or Teams on my phone to see if anything urgent needs my attention.

To help with this, you need to introduce friction to any act that might cause you to revert to the work mindset.

Signing out of any work-related apps on your phone is a good start. Turning off notifications is good for sure, but at least in my situation it just isn't enough to stop me checking them.

You need to make it harder to enact on the urges to check work stuff or else you’ll just fall back to old habits.

If turning off notifications and signing out doesn't stop you, delete the app.

If deleting the app doesn't work and you find yourself reinstalling it to catch up, then you absolutely do need to shut off, and you really should reflect on why switching off feels so difficult.

Work can wait. Life won't.

See you all in 2025