AP 0288: How Do You Relax Your Mind After Working Late?

AskPat 288 Episode Transcript

Pat: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 288 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today, I don't know why I said it like that. Anyway, today's question is from Chris. Before we get to Chris’s question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks.com.

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Cool, now let's get to today's question from Chris.

Chris: Hey Pat, Chris from NicheSiteTools.com. My question for you today is in regards to how you go about shutting your mind off after you've been working on your niche site projects late into the night. As someone who also works on their sites into the evening, like I know you do after the kids go to sleep, I'm curious if you have a ritual? Maybe you stop a half hour before you go to bed, maybe you do some meditation. Maybe you watch a little bit of Back to the Future, I'm not quite sure.

I'm really curious if you have any methods to kind of shut your brain off and relax before you go to sleep after doing something technical or mentally stimulating on your niche site project. Thank you so much, appreciate everything you do. Have a great day.

Pat: Chris thank you so much for this question. I think it's a really important one because it's always important to go to bed in a state of mind where you're just relaxed and everything's cool, so that when you wake up you'll be the same way. Oftentimes we wake up the way we fall asleep; this is something I've heard and experienced before. You want to go to bed in a state of mind where you don't have work on your mind. Like you said, Chris, it could be very difficult to turn off.

I've been known to work very late into the early morning hours, and then just go to bed right away. There's a few things I like to do but I will give you actually a very important tool that all of you should be using if you aren't already. This is going to help you, especially if you do work late at night or anytime when it's dark. This is really important because what it does is it adjusts the glow or the brightness of your screen based on the time of day.

I've found that when I disable this tool, because I do it just for fun to see the difference, you don't notice it changing over time. If you're on your computer for a long time and this tool is on, it changes very slowly. It depends on your location and your time, and knows all that stuff. I disable it and then my eyes hurt. It's just super bright and I can't believe it changed that much. You don't even notice it, so you can definitely work on a lower brightness without even having it affect your work.

This tool is called F.lux. If you go to JustGetFlux.com, F-L-U-X, just like the flux capacitor. You go to JustGetFlux.com, you can download this. It's free for Mac OSX, for Windows, Linux and iPhone and iPad. This is so important, and I want to thank Glen Allsopp from Viperchill.com for introducing this tool to me.

It's been a life changer for me because when you do work with that big eerie blue glow in your face, and you know this because maybe some of you read it at night in the bed with the iPad or you check your phone or play games before you go to bed; it's just really hard to go to bed. A lot of it is because of that big bright blue glow that's pounding your face at that time. You're just blinded by it. Use F.lux, again JustGetFlux.com. You're not going to be distracted or it's going to be easier to get out of work mode essentially is what I'm trying to get at.

Other things I like to do is literally just shut down everything. If I know I'm done with work, I want to be as much as I can checked out of it. To do that, I shut down the computer, obviously you're going to save energy too, which is always good. You also want to commit to not checking your phone for work related things as well. I've gotten to the point where I just had to go to airplane mode every once and a while because I was catching myself by habit checking email and things like that.

I've been doing a lot better since I've hooked up with my assistant Jessica who is helping me stay on top of my emails. She's been very good at disciplining me when she notices that I check email when I'm not supposed to. Thank you, Jessica, if you're listening to this.

Now I don't have to keep it on airplane mode because that becomes a step. The purpose of doing that is it stops all the notifications, if you try to get onto email, you have to flip it back out of airplane mode. Just the fact that you have to do that gives you a little quick moment of, “Hey, do you need to do this really?” Then you stop. That's a good tip for you if you're having trouble with checking your phone. You don't want calls in the middle of the night anyway. That's something I do as well.

To help me get out I also sometimes listen to music. I don't watch anything, I don't try to watch anything before I go to bed because the TV doesn't have F.lux, it's going to give you that some sort of glow. Especially if you're watching anything violent at night, it's going to keep your brain going and you become somebody who's in fight or flight mode. You can't go to sleep when you're in fight or flight mode. Don't watch any violence before you go to bed.

I also like to read. I think reading is probably the biggest thing for me, and I read fiction. I try not to read business related books at night, because then I will continue to think about business. I want to take notes and things like that. I read fiction novels at night sometimes if I know I'm going to be working late. Sometimes that just takes like 10 minutes because my eyes are tired anyway and my brain will be able to shut off. I begin thinking about the scenario in the book and that's it, then I fall asleep and done.

Other times I'll talk to my wife. I'm not saying that puts me to sleep, but that gets my mind out of work mode. That could have gone any which way.

Chris, I hope that answers your question. Those are some of the few things I do. If any of you listening out there have anything you do to help yourself get out of work mode. Again, to recap: shutting off everything, using F.lux, airplane mode for the device if that helps you, music, and reading and not watching television. Those are things that I do. What do you do?

Use the hashtag #AskPat288 on Twitter and leave your suggestions there for Chris, myself, and everybody else following the hashtag. Again, #AskPat288.

Thanks again, Chris. An AskPat t-shirt is heading your way. Best of luck to all the work that you do, especially late at night. I will say for everybody out there, I recommend you check out the latest episode of the SPI podcast. If you're listening to this the day this comes out, episode 150 for those of you out there: SmartPassiveIncome.com/session150.

I actually talk about the change up, the adjustment in my routine, which I've switched from a late night routine to now an early morning routine thanks to Hal Elrod and The Miracle Morning. I recommend you listen to that. It’s titled The Day and Life of Pat. Again, that's SmartPassiveIncome.com/session150 if you're listening to this right now. That will always be there obviously after this episode goes live. You can head on over there.

For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. Hope you're doing well.

As always, I want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks.com. They make invoicing super easy, they have an award-winning mobile app so you can check your finances in a snap. Money coming in, your expenses, helping you keep track of all that so you can focus more on your business and not about the accounting stuff. This becomes your partner with your business. You wear so many hats in your business, FreshBooks becomes your partner in terms of finances and accounting. They wear that hat for you so you can focus on all the other hats you have to worry about.

If you want to get a 30-day free trial of FreshBooks, it's awesome. Go to FreshBooks.com/AskPat and enter “AskPat” in the “how did you hear about us?” section. FreshBooks.com/AskPat, enter “AskPat.” Thanks so much. I appreciate you. Look forward to another episode of AskPat tomorrow.

Before we go, here is a quote from Ray Goforth. He says, “There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.” Cheers, and I will see you tomorrow. Bye.