Stop thinking about work earlier today to be more productive tomorrow

But that’s not always possible in the age of remote work and always-on expectations.

[Photo: babaroga/Adobe Stock]

Your performance at work today has a lot to do with how you spent your time after work yesterday.  

It’s not just about putting down the devices at a decent hour and having a consistent bedtime routine. New research suggests we can take steps to optimize tomorrow’s performance as soon as work ends today.

According to the study, mentally detaching from work earlier in the day—and not thinking about it for the rest of the evening—leads to more energy, less fatigue, and higher work-goal accomplishment the following day.

“It’s critical that you start your recovery as soon as you can,” says lead author Ryan Grant, an assistant professor of psychological science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Grant and his co-researchers asked more than 300 participants to log their activity every hour for five hours each evening, as well as record how they felt and what they accomplished the next day.

They also identified factors that made it harder to leave work behind—which pushed the start of that mental recovery later into the evening and ultimately left workers feeling more depleted the next day.

“On days when workload is higher, people are about 79% more likely to delay their recovery later into the evening,” he says. “On days when people felt more accomplished at work, they were about 56% more likely to recover earlier in the evening.”

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