My friend Scott Blake wrote a great piece at the end of the year on how he finishes his days:
I’d keep going until the problem was solved, the task was complete, or I was too drained to continue. If something was still broken or unanswered, I felt pressure to push through it before logging off. Ending the day with loose ends felt like failure, like I wasn’t completing my tasks.
Over time, I realized that approach was quietly working against me.
Not because unfinished work is bad, but because how you leave work unfinished matters.
Ooooooo, that’s an interesting one. I work from to-do lists constantly, but in a dynamic environment where we’re constantly doing one-offs, repetition can be a bit of a challenge. I’ve been thinking a lot on what it takes to disconnect from the day to day grind of it all for 2026, and how you make space for better habits.
This past year, I’ve talked to a lot of people about two major thoughts in this space.
Journaling
I love Field Notes notebooks, not just because of their amazing product, but their workflow that goes into it. They gave me a key part of my ethos for the year: “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.” I’ve had boxes and boxes of their books, but the habit to keep using them was hard to create. I think I’ve got a good combo of calendar reminders and nudges now to get this going. Here’s the plan:
Bullet Journal Style with what happened. Track Key conversations, track deadline progress. Key reminders for tomorrow after that. A note about the weather, my mood, and my energy level at the end. Keep it to a page a day, or if I need to really unpack something, that’s what the Apple Journal is for.
Make Time For This by putting 15 min on your calendar as Focus Time to end your day. Don’t let anyone schedule over it. Just block that space. You’re doing tomorrow’s you a huge favor and setting it up for success by doing this. Pay it forward.
End of the Week Wrap-ups
Friday’s a terrible day to make configuration changes. Says the guy whose business makes its money from Thursday to Sunday. You don’t want to jeopardize the key revenue time with changes when you’re busy, unless you positively have to.
I have an hour block on my Friday afternoon now to combine longterm planning and weekly wrap-ups. But this is where the tool changes for me: these are going into digital records, not just analog. I’m piping this year’s weeklies into Notion pages so I can reference them later. Key points are going to be distilled from the daily pages, plus project timelines and updates.
Building a dashboard out of this is one of my 2026 goals: what did I spend my time on? What did that turn into for the company? For the department? What was I able to move the needle on?
So, Wrapping Up…
What are you adding to your arsenal in 2026? What tools are you embracing to help you? As Scott said:
Productivity isn’t about squeezing every ounce out of today. It’s about making tomorrow easier to start.
What are you doing to be kind to tomorrow you? What are you doing to help smooth that launch each day?
Find the things that feed you, the things that make it easier to start, and focus there first.
Cannonball 