With 2026 around the corner, many people are eyeing tips and tricks to bring into the new year at home and at work.
And while many are considering a new morning or evening routine, there are two other routines you might want to incorporate into your schedule, specifically at work, to better focus when you need to and disconnect at the end of the day, says Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University and author of several books on focus and productivity.
Newport is a proponent of using time blocking to reserve time during your day for deep work, meaning the tasks that are most cognitively demanding.
The first routine Newport recommends is for the run-up to a deep work block.
“Our brain is not wired for sustained concentration on an abstract or symbolic topic,” Newport says. “Give your brain time, give it some help shifting over into deep work mode because it’s a very unnatural thing you’re asking your brain to do.”
Many workers are constantly bombarded with notifications throughout their day. A Microsoft report from April found that employees are interrupted every 2 minutes by emails, meetings or pings. The brain is in a very different state managing all of that digital noise than when you’re zeroed in on deep work, so it takes to switch between these modes.
Before a deep work block on your calendar, you might take a quick walk around the block, make tea, or clean your desk — something you can repeat and use as a signal to your brain it’s time to switch modes. Think of it like stretching before you go on a run.
“You can’t just shut down your inbox, open Microsoft Word and think, ‘Now I’m focused,'” Newport says.
At the end of your workday, you also need a shutdown routine.
“It’s a way of clearing out your brain after work so it’s not going to be held partially hostage by work thoughts for your time outside of work,” Newport says.
His shutdown routine as he signs off at the end of his workday includes doing a final inbox check, looking ahead on his work calendar and writing down any reminders.
At the end of it, you should feel, “We’re in a good place, there’s nothing else I need to figure out tonight, we’re on track for the things we need to get done.” Then, you should have “some sort of visible shutdown statement or routine to indicate you’ve finished.” Newport, for example, checks off a box that says “Shutdown complete” as the last step.
A shutdown routine won’t magically put an end to your work anxiety, but it can “help teach your brain to slow down work ruminations.”
“Instead of engaging with the ruminations, you say I checked that checkbox and I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t gone through everything and convinced myself we’re in a good position to shut down for the day,” Newport says.
“It prevents you from the temptation of maybe I should just go check my inbox,” he adds. “It helps you move on from work in a way that eventually your brain learns so you can get more out of your life outside work.”
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