Why You Can't Switch Off From Work, Even After the Laptop's Closed
Written by Lisa Infante - Founder of Courage to Change Collective
Why You Can’t Switch Off From Work, Even After the Laptop’s Closed.
It's 11pm and you're replaying the call from this afternoon, the price you quoted, the email you sent after lunch. The laptop has been shut since dinner. You tell yourself you'll sleep once you've worked out what you should have done differently. If you can't switch off from work even when nothing is urgent, there's a reason, and it isn't a lack of discipline.
Closing the laptop doesn't close the decisions
Switching off needs your mind to believe the work is finished, and plenty of what you carry isn't finished. The price you set. The conversation you've been putting off. The decision you've half made.
Researchers who study recovery from work describe affective rumination: repetitive, emotionally charged thinking that keeps your mind switched on after hours and gets in the way of mentally disengaging. It's the replay at 11pm. The more you're responsible for, the more there is to replay.
The laptop's closed. The decisions aren't.
Why you feel like you have to do everything yourself
“It's quicker if I just do it myself.” You've probably said it this week, and sometimes it's true. But speed is rarely the whole story. If you do it, you know it's handled and you know exactly how it was done. Handing it over means living with not knowing how it'll land, and that's a feeling most of us will go a long way to avoid.
So you keep the task, and you keep the worry that comes with it. That's how work follows you home, and how you end up the bottleneck in your own business.
Overthinking a decision feels like diligence
One more bit of research. Another opinion. One more tweak. It feels responsible because you're doing something, and thinking about a decision can feel a lot like making it, right up until you notice it's still open.
Real reflection ends in a conclusion. Overthinking just goes round again. Sometimes what's underneath is the shitty feeling of committing, because once you decide, it can go wrong.
A quick test: if your last few rounds of thinking haven't added anything new, you've stopped researching. You're waiting to feel ready, and that feeling doesn't arrive by itself.
The habits that built your business now cost you the most
Being across everything. Saying yes. Working harder. Solving every problem yourself. They probably got you here, which is exactly why they're so hard to question.
As responsibility grows, the same habits start taking more than they give. Every extra thing you hold is one more thing running behind your eyes at night. What got you to this level was never wrong. It just wasn't built to carry the next one.
Imagine closing the laptop and your mind closing with it. Dinner with nothing running behind your eyes. A decision made on Tuesday that is still made on Thursday.
If one of these landed a bit close to home, the Mental Load Audit shows you where your capacity is actually going.
xx Lisa
FAQs
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It's usually not urgency. Unfinished decisions and unknown outcomes keep your mind working long after you've stopped. Reducing that carryover is something you can learn, and it isn't a discipline problem.
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Often, doing it yourself is a way of knowing it's handled. You know the standard will be met and exactly how it was done. It can look like efficiency, but it usually leaves you holding the worry for everything you've kept.
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Thoroughness adds new information. Overthinking repeats what you already know while you wait to feel certain. If your third round of research hasn't changed anything, it's likely about the discomfort of committing, not the quality of the decision.
