Flourish for Freelancers
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Sample Edition
Shutdown Ritual 🌱 Flourish
👋 Hi, hello. How are ya?
This week in Flourish, we have some seriously delectable brain food for your nourishment and pleasure.
There are two great posts, some ‘aha’ worthy book snippets, and some practical things (yes, homework!) you can do — to build toward a significantly more satisfying life.
Enjoy!
☕️ Food for Thought
Spoiler alert: You don’t suck at life.
Read: The 6 Steps to Help Silence Your Inner Critic
Do you want to try to stay on top of things, or do you want to try to get to the bottom of things?
Read: Finding the One Decision That Removes 100 Decisions
💡 TLDR: Things that make you go hmmm
No time for whole books? Here are some quick snippets instead.
All quotes were clipped from Deep Work by Cal Newport
Serious efforts that produce things the world values need the support of a mind regularly released to leisure.
Some decisions are better left to your unconscious. To actively try to work through these decisions will lead to a worse outcome.
For decisions that require the application of strict rules, the conscious mind must be involved.
For decisions that involve large amounts of information and multiple vague, and perhaps even conflicting, constraints, use your unconscious.
Two groups. One group was asked to take a walk on a wooded path. The other group was sent on a walk through the bustling center of the city. Both groups were then given a concentration-sapping task. The nature group performed up to 20 percent better on the task. Spending time in nature can improve your ability to concentrate.
If you keep interrupting your evening to check email, you’re robbing your directed attention centers of the uninterrupted rest they need for restoration.
Trying to squeeze a little more work out of your evenings might reduce your effectiveness the next day.
Once your workday shuts down, you cannot allow even the smallest incursion of professional concerns into your field of attention. Even a brief intrusion of work can generate a self-reinforcing stream of distraction that impedes the shutdown advantages.
Go’on and read ‘em again.
🗯 FYI: We cover roughly one book per month in Flourish (so you get snippets of the same book for five issues.)
🧠 System Upgrade
Follow A Shutdown Ritual
For every incomplete task, goal, or project at the end of your day, either:
- have a plan you trust for its completion, or
- know it’s captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right.
This provides a simple cue to your mind that it’s safe to release work-related thoughts for the rest of the day.
(We swiped this system from our book this week, Deep Work.)
I have my wind-down ritual stuck on a post-it note on my computer display.
Here’s what it prompts me to do:
- PM capture in my Five Minute Journal (something I often forget)
- Update my Personal Kanban board and set the first task for the next day
- Close my laptop and shut down my displays
🥇 Self-coaching: Ask yourself this…
What relationship would I like to improve in the next three months?
Positive relationships fuel a life of fulfilment and well-being.
Your most meaningful work is often what you do to cultivate, nourish and nurture the important connections in your life.
(I think we all need this reminder every now and then.)
🎬 That’s a wrap
Hopefully, something resonated this week. 😌
Thanks so much for reading!
And remember — you can. End of story.
– C
Ps. Have you recently (say, within the last 3-6 months) purchased some form of online learning?
