How To Spend Your Last Ten Minutes At Work Productively

Does not include: watching the clock obsessively

The nine to five grind can wear you down, but it turns out there’s a few ways to destress in your last ten minutes at work while prepping for the day ahead. Thanks to a handy infographic from STL, there’s a few easy steps that will help you stay afloat of tomorrow’s tasks and head home feeling ten pounds lighter.

While it’s been proven that working in a messy environment stimulates creativity, there is something to be said for being organised. Give your desk a good clean, stick all your pens in their pots and wipe everything down so that you come in the next morning to a fresh slate. It’s also worth making a to-do list to stay on top of things first thing in the day, when your brain might still be a little sluggish to help boost productivity.

Leave work at the office and unplug from all communications - your time is your own and there’s no need to invite that stress into your home. Log out of your emails, mute your Whatsapp conversations, forget about Slack: you need time to re-energize away from the office so that you’re not running on empty. Say a polite goodbye to your teammates and leave it at that.

Destressing at the end of the day is an important thing to do, especially as you don’t want those dark clouds hovering over you on the long commute home. Take a moment before you head out to meditate and think about what you’ve achieved today, acknowledging your greatest accomplishment of the day as well as areas of improvement for the day ahead.

These are just a few of the great tips STL had lined up, others included making an effort to not have meetings at the end of the day (who wants to chat about strategy last thing on a Friday?) and doing a massive brain dump. See the whole infographic below:

So instead of counting down the seconds or waiting with bated breath for someone else to leave before you, why not try a few of these tips tonight before you go home?

(Once you're out the door, you're good to put all thoughts of work out of your head. That Netflix binge is a go.)

Megan is a freelance journalist who covers entertainment and all things lifestyle, with a particular passion for fashion, beauty, travel and Keanu Reeves stories. She has previously worked on staff for titles including Marie Claire UK, CNN Style and The Evening Standard and has written for titles such as Bustle UK, Wallpaper*, Forbes and Hong Kong Tatler. She splits her time between London and her hometown Hong Kong, where she currently lives with the love of her life - an elderly dog named Poppy - and her husband.