- Stick to your end time
- Review today’s completed items and what’s in progress
- Confront the things you’ve been putting off
- Set up a difficult task to do first thing in the morning; alternatively, set up an easy thing to do in the morning to warm up your mind and build momentum before jumping into a difficult task
- Write out the rest of tomorrow’s to-do list
- Clean up your desk
- Clean up your digital workspace. For me this means saving work, committing code and tests if necessary, installing any mandatory computer updates, and then shutting and powering off my computer
- For tomorrow, set a schedule including a time to end your day tomorrow
- If possible, end on a high note
I have been working on this. I think I originally heard of this idea in the book Deep Work by Cal Newport, but there is also a similar article on the Doist blog where I got most of these steps and modified them from there.