{"id":145271,"date":"2022-09-29T07:59:54","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T07:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/?p=145271"},"modified":"2022-09-29T07:59:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T07:59:56","slug":"from-quietly-quitting-to-simply-stopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/2022\/09\/29\/from-quietly-quitting-to-simply-stopping\/","title":{"rendered":"From Quietly Quitting To Simply Stopping"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weather wasn\u2019t the only thing that was especially hot this Summer; so was the debate on social media as #QuietQuitting went viral and raged like a forest fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Quiet quitting\u2019 is a phrase coined in a TikTok video that argued for an end to the kind of endemic overworking that erodes wellbeing and leads to burnout. It was seen in some quarters almost as a call to rebellion;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor some, it simply means quitting on hustle culture, which is a great thing. But for many others, it means just going through the motions, accepting a lack of engagement, joy and purpose in our work as a long-term solution to burnout.\u201d Arianna Huffington<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arguing about the rights and wrongs of quiet quitting took place, to some extent, on generational lines as it is the young in particular who are pushing hardest for new ways of working and living. Here\u2019s a recent caustic tweet which hints at this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe biggest thing standing in the way of remote work is a generation of managers who would have to rebuild their social life outside work.\u201d Chris Herd<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ouch. The mood echoes the famous line from \u2018Network\u2019, a film that was made several decades before Generations Y and Z were even born; \u201cWE\u2019RE MAD AS HELL AND WE\u2019RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!!\u201d And rightly so. It\u2019s tough out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a practitioner of GTD\u00ae you will already be aware that it offers tools \u2013 other than quitting – with which to tackle problems in the domain of overwork. Just being aware of GTD\u2019s core principle \u2013 that your mind is for having ideas and not holding them – is a start. If you capture, clarify and organise your commitments outside your head then they won\u2019t plague you so much on the inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve also written previously \u2013 e.g. here<\/a> – about how GTD can help you have better conversations with your managers about what \u2018done\u2019 looks like so that they don\u2019t need to physically keep you in line of sight to assure themselves that you\u2019re doing what you said you would do. This is a potentially transformative step if you and your colleagues ever want to go home without feeling you have to sneak<\/em> home, as the phrase \u2018quiet quitting\u2019 suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if your bosses aren\u2019t yet enlightened enough to get everyone trained in GTD? There are still ways in which you can use GTD yourself to minimise the feeling that work never stops and one of them I\u2019d like to suggest in this blog is to develop what I like to call a \u2018Closedown checklist\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the name suggests, the closedown checklist is a series of steps you can take on a daily basis when it\u2019s time to clock off in order to draw cleaner edges between working and not working. This is important because, at the end of the day \u2013 see what I did there? – we\u2019re not machines that can run 24\/7 but we are<\/em> like machines in one respect \u2013 turning us off and turning us back on again regularly is necessary to reset us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s vital to be able to simply stop but for most people it\u2019s not that easy, unaided, so here are some suggestions to get you started on a closedown checklist. They are divided loosely into two types \u2013 things that help you get your mind off<\/em> your work and things that help you get your mind on <\/em>your life after work;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Switch Off Work<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n