1 min read
Closing the founder check
How I get to the end of a working day without dragging it into the next one.
Working alone, the end of the day does not announce itself. Nobody packs up at a desk near mine. No commute resets the brain. If I do not close the day deliberately, it leaks into the evening, the night, and the next morning.
The closing check#
I do three things, in order, before I close the laptop:
- Read what I committed today. Not for review. To see the day from outside myself for a minute.
- Write one sentence about what tomorrow's first task will be. One sentence, on paper. Specific.
- Close every tab that is not relevant to that first task.
The whole thing takes four minutes.
What it does#
The next morning starts with a runway, not a search. I open the laptop and the first task is already named. I do not lose the first hour to re-establishing context.
What goes wrong without it#
I have skipped this check often enough to know the cost. The next day starts with a vague sense of falling behind. The vague sense is wrong, but it sets the tone for hours.