Sometimes it is not easy to find the off button in the confusion. Just shut it down, sounds good – but needs to be practiced. A guide to switch off.
You have to be a koala: sleep all day and only get up to eat and mate. Sure, to slumber 18 hours a day like our fluffy colleagues, we can realistically take that off. Nevertheless, we need our time when it says: Charge once, please. Until the battery bar is back in the green area and you have the strength to tackle new tasks. This works best when, for once, thoughts are not about job, house, child and farm. Everyone needs their 5 minutes, or 50, or 5 hours. This is how it works best.
1. Bye, bye smartphone
The first off button to be pressed is that of the smartphone. Because our cell phone is usually pretty good at distracting us quickly. The e-mails are checked briefly or an SMS is quickly written and you end up in a vortex of new to-dos. So stay away! Once the technology is off, it's easier for us to switch off.
2. The after-work ritual
Finally after work! Easier said than done. Even if you are no longer physically at your desk, your head likes to stay there – especially in the home office. How can you really switch off? The solution: How about ending every working day with a ritual to signal: From now on my free time begins, I leave everything else behind. The best way to do this is with a soda after work, a really nice nap on the couch, or a little moment all to yourself.
3. Bad conscience? I? Nope!
It's the weekend, the family has just left the house, now what? It could be vacuumed again, the toaster repaired or the cupboards wiped out. Nope! Now is dolce far niente hip, as the Italians call it too beautiful – "sweet idleness". Without a guilty conscience. The trick is to exercise calm and to recognize that everything doesn't always have to happen immediately and, above all, that you are not responsible for everything.