Talking and writing about morning routines has become an industry. A quick Amazon search for “morning routine” yields fifteen books on the subject, and that’s just the first two pages of results. It’s a popular subject because the gurus are right. I personally have benefited greatly by building a repetitive system around my morning routine. While morning routines draw all the attention, There’s another routine that I think is equally as important, for different reasons.

A big challenge for many of us is the transition from “work time” to “family time”. With modern tech allowing us 24 x 7 access to our jobs plus more and more people working from home, the division between work time and home time is often blurred, resulting in millions of employees taking their work home with them, or not really finishing work in the first place. It’s a major problem that causes great stress in relationships with studies showing that a marriage to a workaholic can double the chance of divorce. With the number of people working from home continuing to grow the stress the lack of divide causes on families will only get bigger.

All of this stress and the expansion of the work window drives home the importance of not only having a good morning routine, but also focusing on your evening routine.

Here are some tips to help form a perfect evening routine:

Disconnect: Our smartphones are both incredible efficiency machines but also the worst time suck ever invented. Not only do they draw attention away from what is in front of us, the social media applications that sit on them have the opposite effect of what they were designed to do: rather than connecting with those right in front of us we aimlessly waste time on social media connecting with those not as important to us. The result is a household full of people staring at their phones and not talking to each other. So when you get home put your phone on the counter and connect with your family. Be together. Discuss your day. Have real conversation.

Get out and move: After a busy day the worst thing you can do is come home, drop your bag on the floor and sit on the couch for the inevitable five hours of TV watching. Don’t come home and turn on the news. Get home, grab your family and spend a precious hour on a walk, or in the back yard doing something active. If you live in an area where the weather is terrible and you don’t want to be outside, do something active inside. The main thing is to connect with those around you without your smart phones and without the television on.

About that commute home: Even before we get home we have the commute home. Often the commute home is one more stressful activity following a stressful day. Use the commute home to connect or nourish the mind. Call someone you haven’t talked to in a while and have a conversation. Or listen to an informative podcast, preferably something that has a focus on positivity. You’ll be shocked how a good conversation or good content to listen to can turn around even the worst day at work. Avoid listening to subjects like politics that can often increase the negativity in your mind.

Warmly great your family: Don’t come into the house distracted on a phone call. Completely set aside your work and warmly great your family with a smile and a hug. Give your significant other a hug and a kiss. Coming into the house stressed and in a bad mood only increases the stress and affects the mood of the room. It’s all about setting the tone and the way you communicate nonverbally is important.

Plan ahead: If it’s your turn to cook dinner that night, be prepared to cook dinner. Arriving home at five and then looking in the refrigerator and pantry to figure out dinner only adds to stress. It also often ends up with an unhealthy meal ordered via delivery or takeout. If it’s your turn to cook, be prepared to cook and plan it out prior. Most importantly, reduce the stress of your partners day by telling them in advance that you are in charge of the meal that night.

Put your work FULLY aside. Due to the nature of my profession there are times when I have to be plugged in during the evening. The remainder of the year my focus when I arrive home isn’t on work. Don’t take your work home with you, unless you absolutely have to. Create a clear separation between work time and family time. Happy people have a work/life balance. Work daily to achieve that. If you feel you can’t have that balance it may make sense to 1)revisit your systems and find a way to create this 2)think about maybe looking for something different or 3)get up earlier in the morning to get things done so you don’t interfere with quality family time. With my kids I judge time differently. For my 15-year-old son I judge time based on the three years I have remaining with him before he goes off to college. I’ll never be able to reclaim that time with him when he leaves the household, something that has changed my perspective on putting my work fully aside.

Be attentive to your evenings. Cherish them for the happiness and laughter they can provide. Don’t make them an extension of your work day.

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