Joe Rando
Solopreneurs struggle to shut down because there's no boss to signal the end of the day, working from home erases the physical transition between work and life, and unfinished tasks stay open in your mind like browser tabs. Add in years of corporate conditioning that equates being always available with being successful, and detaching becomes genuinely difficult.
In this episode of The Life-First Solopreneur, Carly Ries and Joe Rando explore how to reclaim a real "end of day," and why it matters for a life-first business.
What is a clean shutdown ritual?
A clean shutdown isn't about stopping at a specific time. It's a deliberate mental handoff, closing down everything running in your brain, similar to a surgeon scrubbing out after an operation. The formal process of transition is what lets you leave work behind, not just walking away from your desk.
How to build a shutdown ritual (step by step):
- Brain dump – Capture every loose task, follow-up, and idea into a trusted system so it's out of your head.
- Tomorrow list – Identify your top one to three priorities for the next day so your brain stops rehearsing them overnight.
- Review moment – Take two minutes to reflect: What got done? What was a win? What can improve tomorrow?
- Physical close – Shut the laptop, clean the desk, close the office door.
- Transition cue – Do something that marks the shift (change clothes, walk the dog, start a playlist) to move into personal mode.
How do you handle work thoughts during family time?
Use the parking lot technique: keep a small notebook or phone note to capture intrusive thoughts in the moment, so your brain can release them. Learn to tell the difference between a true work emergency and a thought that can simply wait, because it usually can.
This week's challenge: Design your own shutdown ritual with three to five steps and try it for five consecutive workdays. Notice how it changes your evenings.
Key takeaway: No one reaches the end of their life wishing they'd answered one more email. Building intentional boundaries is a hallmark of a life-first business.
Enjoy the episode? Leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify, subscribe on your favorite platform including YouTube, and share it with a fellow solopreneur.
EpisodeTranscription
Carly Ries: When I was growing up, I never once actually saw my dad working because he left at 07:45. He came home at five, and he kept a clean line between office and home. But now that I'm running a Life-First Solopreneur business from home, I'm trying to chase that same shutdown boundary, but I'm having a harder time doing it because I don't have that physical distance from where I work from where I live. So in this episode, Joe and I get honest about why we, solopreneurs, have a hard time switching it off, and we break down to how to build a real shutdown ritual, including the brain dump, the tomorrow list, and the parking lot technique for work thoughts that crash your family dinner. And we even have a challenge for you to design your own shutdown ritual.
Because remember, nobody ever reaches the end of their life wishing they'd answer one more email. This is an episode you do not wanna miss.
You're listening to the Life First Solopreneur, the podcast for those in pursuit of a life first business. I'm Carly Ries, and my cohost, Joe Rando, and I spend every episode with solopreneurs who are proving there's a better way to run a one person business and experts who are helping make it happen. We like to say life first, then business. So let's get right to it. I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day, and I was saying I'm having a hard time because my kids see me work. it's just that even if they're playing and they're, coloring whatever, my laptop is up. It's just the nature of working from home, remote work life, work life harmony, everything. And I'm so grateful for it. But it makes me remember, I never once saw my dad work, ever.
As a kid, he would go to the office at 07:45, come back at five, and he was so good about that. I never once saw him work. And he worked all day, but it just was never in front of me. I started thinking about it and I was like, gosh, how do I really shut the day down and have that quote unquote 05:00 ending that my dad used to example so well when I was growing up? And how do you do that knowing that I'm making dinner, I'm setting the table.
We always talk about our days and what we're grateful for and all that stuff. And then in the back of my mind, I'm like, oh, did I do that one task? Oh, did I do that one thing? Oh, did I write that email correctly or did it come off not how it was supposed to? Blah blah blah.
And I think a lot of people, especially when you're living a life first business, struggle with actually turning your mind off at the end of the day so that you can be focused and have that quality time, friend time, personal time, you name it, and really just detach. Have you ever struggled with that?
Joe Rando: Oh, boy. No. Never.
Carly Ries: No. You're perfect.
Joe Rando: Well, you know the story about why I gave up programming. Right?
Carly Ries: I don't think I do know the story.
Joe Rando: Oh, it was for the same reason that most people, people give up cocaine. I would get up at 06:00 in the morning and then it would be midnight.
Carly Ries: Oh, yeah.
Joe Rando: I mean, it was just crazy, but yes, you know, I have struggled with this. And, as soon as you have a computer in your house, which, for me happened early in my marriage, It was easy to kind of do some work, even when you worked in an office, you could come home and do work. So yeah, I've struggled with this extensively. I am doing well now, but yeah, probably one of the things I regret the most is that I did a little too much of that.
Carly Ries: so we want to try to prevent that. I think why solopreneurs struggle to shut it down more than others is you don't have a boss telling you when the day is over, which I don't know any bosses that are like, okay. Turn it off. No more working for you.
Joe Rando: I've heard that story sometimes. Yeah.
Carly Ries: They do exist.
Joe Rando: Heard about that.
Carly Ries: But there's the always on myth , the myth that being available equals being successful. We talked about that in our last episode. And then how working from home just kinda erases the physical transition. Like, I would say with my dad, just signal work is over. My dad worked 07:45 to five for forty five years.
Like, forty plus years. And again, like I said, I never once saw him work. He just had those boundaries set. But then I think for solopreneurs, there's that mental tab problem of unfinished tasks, staying open in your brain, browser tabs, not that you and I have copious amounts of browser tabs open at all times. This is just hypothetical, obviously.
And then I just think we're unique. One, we're conditioned from, corporate life to always be thinking about stuff. But I think we have a hard time untraining ourselves to shut down. Anything you want to add?
Joe Rando: I mean, I agree with everything you said. you know, the solution, unfortunately, is it's not anything particularly simple. It kinda comes down to a mindset shift. And a rethinking of your values. again, I don't know about other people, for me growing up, especially, kind of becoming a professional in the, late eighties, which was the heyday of the yuppie. I wasn't a yuppie, but they were kind of culturally present. And this idea of, being in the office at 09:00 at night was a point of pride. And that's still around. I mean, that whole idea of, working, working, working, is still around.
And I mean, it's fine if that's what you want, but if you don't want that, why are you doing it?
Carly Ries: Yeah. So when I'm talking about clean shutdown, it's not about stopping at a specific time. It's about, a deliberate mental handoff. Like, not just stopping or closing down everything that is in your brain. And I've heard a lot of people say that rituals really work for this.
So kind of the analogy of a surgeon scrubbing out. There's that formal process of transition away from the Operating Room and not just walking away from it, but implying that analogy to your solopreneur life. I don't think a lot of our listeners are doctors. We'll just kinda take that
Joe Rando: We got a few.
Carly Ries: Maybe a few. But maybe just take that concept. So I was thinking about how to build that shutdown ritual. And these are my thoughts.
Joe Rando: Good. Because I don't have any.
Carly Ries: Okay. So doing a brain dump. So before closing, do a complete capture of everything still in your head, those loose tasks, those follow ups, ideas, worries. Gosh, Joe. If only there was an app coming soon that could help with this.
And get it out of your mind and into a trusted system. And spoiler, there is an app that we're creating. That's why I said that. So visit our website for more details. But there's the brain dump.
There's the tomorrow list, which is where you identify your top one or two to three priorities for the next day. So this kinda tells your brain it doesn't need to keep rehearsing them overnight. You know they're coming the next day. Can you tell that this is influenced by our app?
Joe Rando: No. No. Absolutely.
Carly Ries: You can tell it's coming the next day, so just don't worry about it while you're having dinner. Take a review moment during this ritual, which is like a two minute look back. What got done? What was a win? What was a loss that you can work on?
And this kinda just closes the loop psychologically for that day. Like, you can have that reflection time. What can be better tomorrow? What worked well that you could apply tomorrow? And then there's the physical close.
Shut the laptop. Clean up your desk. Close the door if you work at an office in your house. And just those physical cues like the operating room kinda reinforce that mental transition. And then there's the transition part itself that's something that marks the shift.
So maybe you go take the dog for a walk. You change your clothes. I know after this meeting, I'll probably take off my LifeStarr polo as, a transition that the interview's done. Now as my kid's parent, can go back to my T shirt and yoga pants. or a specific playlist, making a cup of coffee. it doesn't matter what it is, but maybe it's once you're done kind of doing the review of the day and everything, make that clear actual transition that takes you back into personal mode. I don't know. I kinda like those ideas. Maybe I'm biased because I came up with them.
Joe Rando: Well, they sound like good idea. I've done none of them. So maybe I can give it a try and tell you what I think because I've just kind of have a time that I go, I'm done. And I just kinda get as far as I can and then, I'll leave stuff , okay. I'll pick this up in the morning.
Carly Ries: The fed up mode.
Joe Rando: But I gotta be honest. It's not fed up. It's just because I used to be like, oh, I'm just gonna keep going. I'm not done. And I've got myself to the point where I'm comfortable stopping.
I don't love it all the time because sometimes you're on a roll and you got your head around it, and you know, I gotta get back into this in the morning. But just, not stopping and having other aspects of life, it just doesn't make sense, and it's not what I want. but, I haven't thought about the idea of of having a little process of shutting down, so I'm gonna give it a try. I'll let you know.
Carly Ries: Well, there may be some people that are like, oh, Carly, that's so cute. Like, we live in an ideal scenario where that just happened so easily, and I get that it doesn't. So if you have, intrusive thoughts during family times or evenings, and you don't really know how to handle them without spiraling or whatever, there's a technique I heard called a parking lot technique where you keep a small notebook or a phone note or anything to capture thoughts in the moment so your brain can let them go. And I just thought, like really, I feel like journaling is a buzzword, a buzz trend right now.
But I think it is for a reason, like, just to get everything down out of your head and onto paper. I just think that's really helpful. And if there's a true work emergency, jump on it. But learn how to tell the difference because usually it's not.
Joe Rando: Well, and not to do the shameless app plug thing, but, part of the reason that I am functioning the way I am is because everything that's important is inside of the LifeStarr app, and it's there, and I don't have to worry about it. I know everything about each thing I'm dealing with is there and consolidated in one place. All the emails, all the files, everything is there. so I don't sit there like I used to wake up at 02:00 in the morning going, oh, I didn't call so and so, or I didn't do this, what's going on with that? And now I know it's all there. And it's very relaxing.
Carly Ries: Yeah.
Joe Rando: So that's kind of part of the reason why I'm not struggling with this end of day stuff like maybe I used to, where I gotta get this done. I gotta get this done. And at the of the day, nobody is, at the end of their life thinking, oh, I wish I responded to that email that one night. Like, who can at the end of the day. So I have a challenge for you and our listeners.
Okay.
Carly Ries: You've already said you're gonna do this, but design your own shutdown ritual this week. write down three to five steps. You don't have to do the steps that I mentioned, but just try it for five consecutive workdays and see how it feels. And, Joe, I'm just curious to see. I'm gonna tweak mine a little bit, I have some ideas, but I'm curious to see and maybe we can touch base in a few weeks to see how it's going.
Joe Rando: Yeah. I just might not do it right away, but only because I've got my granddaughter coming out and we're gonna be doing all kinds of stuff. I will be working next week, but it's gonna be weird
Carly Ries: We'll do it on a regular
Joe Rando: I wanna do it on a regular week. So it'll be the week after. but I will do it.
Carly Ries: Perfect. I will do it. And that's a sign of a life first business.
Joe Rando: I'm putting it in LifeStarr right now.
Carly Ries: Perfect. Well, listeners, as always, thank you so much for tuning in. Please leave the five star review. It helps us spread the word to other Life-First Solopreneurs, and that is getting a lot of great feedback. So, we would love that feedback written down or typed down on Apple or Spotify.
Joe Rando: Or YouTube.
Carly Ries: Or YouTube. Yes. Absolutely. On YouTube. Speaking of YouTube, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube, and share this episode with a friend that you think might need to hear it, especially ones that you think might get distracted at happy hour with your friends or going on a hike.
If their brain is elsewhere, tell them to listen to this episode. And we'll see you next time on the Life-First Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures?
At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.