Where Zen Meets Inbox Zero

The art of being done

Catching a catfish with a gourd (Hyōnen-zu) by Josetsu, 1415

I

Last Monday evening, as I was grilling a summer dinner for my family, I realized I’d forgotten to send a work email. It wasn’t even important. Yet there I was, rotating corn and flipping jalapeños, while this digital gnat buzzed incessantly in my mind. Smoke rose from the grill, and with it, my chances of peace.

Dinner is supposed to be my time for presence, for connection—not for work-induced mental gymnastics. Spatula in hand, I played the role of Grill Daddy, but even as I flipped chicken, my mind kept trying to flip back to that unsent message. The sizzle of the barbecue faded beneath the intensity of my thoughts, revved up over nothing more than pixels and protocols left unattended.

I rotated the corn to its uncooked side and dashed into my office. There, I promptly turned on my computer—the same one I’d wiped down and powered off just fifteen minutes ago. I sat breathing as the screen flickered to life, immediately diving into my inbox to send that damn message. Then, at warp speed, I slammed the lid shut and bolted back to my neglected, garlic-peppered corn. The whole thing felt dirty, like I’d just railed a line and hooked up with a stranger in a back alley—or something equally seedy.

II

This out-of-character move was just the latest battle in my ongoing war with work-life boundaries—a fight that has birthed some admittedly strange habits. For years, I’ve had a ritual to mark the end of my workday: I grab a microfiber cloth, spritz some screen cleaner on it, and meticulously wipe down my digital arsenal—computer, phone, AirPods—before powering them all off. If this sounds neurotic, well, it is. It’s my neat-freak nature meets boundary-setting yogi. It’s my ritual to digitally clock out, even if my brain doesn’t always get the memo.

There’s a dark underbelly to doing work you genuinely love—it never ends. This is the shadow side of feeling like you’ve got a calling, a vocation, a purpose, a Dharma that’s gonna unfold itself come hell or high water. Especially when your gig is, in part, of the online variety—my work can feel like an infinite scroll, no “load more” button in sight. Sure, my coaching, group work, and non-profits have natural endpoints.

But when it comes to essays, to thinking, to sharing online, it’s a whole different beast—a Hydra that sprouts two new heads for every one I lop off. One of my favorite writerly exercises is letting an essay idea percolate up from the unconscious, then chewing on it for days, maybe even weeks. This mental mastication, this cognitive churn, it’s endless. And in our hyper-voltage, forever plugged-in culture, the hedonic treadmill never stops spinning. I could, of course, conveniently blame the capitalist machine. But ultimately, I’m the one with my hand on the off switch.

III

It took more than just self-awareness to actually flip that switch, though. Like many paradigm shifts in my life, it was a relationship that truly schooled me in the art of work boundaries. Grace—bless her patience—would gently yet consistently remind me that I needed to leave my work at work. This was especially crucial during the pandemic, when we found ourselves holed up in a little foothill town, with me holed up perpetually in my makeshift home office.

And fuck, did I need that reminder on repeat. So I conjured up this end-of-day ritual, this digital cleansing ceremony if you will, to signal to my workaholic mind that the idea spigot needed shutting off. I’d love to claim I had this epiphany while communing with nature in those verdant mountains, but truth is, I needed someone to lovingly hold me accountable.

Becoming a father has amplified this need to be done with the workday. I’ve spent the last several years living in what I call “monk mode”—reading, writing, guiding handfuls of folks through somatic therapy, meditating—but taking my sweet time with it all. I’ve been a perfectionist with my essays and projects, luxuriating in the endless possibilities of digital creation.

But now? That luxury of being a perfectionist, of dillying about online, it’s evaporated. I mean, sure, I could still do it, but it’s not what I want anymore. I want to make the hours count.

I should confess, compared to many, my “work-life balance” was already solid. Yet today, with newfound clarity, I see just how crucial it is to draw that line between work and family. The stakes are higher, the time more precious. It’s no longer about just me and my work; it’s about being present for the little dude who needs me, who doesn’t care about my unfinished essay or my next big idea.

Even prior to this new reality, I had to be strategic about how I prioritize my days. For the past several years, I’ve been operating on a deceptively simple method—jotting down 4-10 tasks in my journal each day, then savoring the satisfaction of crossing them off as I go. I stumbled upon this approach after diving deep into the science of “peak performance,” devouring works from Steven Kotler, and studying those who’ve accomplished the seemingly impossible. I’m somewhat sheepish about that obsession now, but the insights still serve me quite well.

There’s a real sweet spot in finding what’s actually doable in a day, and for a dreamer like me, it’s typically way less than my ambition suggests. For others of a more velvety temperament, like Grace, it’s the opposite: she can likely accomplish more in a day than she thinks. But universally, we all can accomplish more than we think when we cut the bullshit and just dive in.

There’s a primal pleasure in crossing items off that list—it’s psychologically satisfying in a way my hunter-gatherer ancestors might have felt after a successful hunt. We are wired to protect, to secure food for the tribe. Fail at that for some days, for some weeks, and not just hunger, but depression sets in. Ironically, in our modern age, the best I’ve got is crossing off “send important email” in my journal, because in a roundabout way, that’s how my family gets fed.

I’m far from alone in grappling with these challenges. This approach resonates with a beautiful article Oliver Burkeman just wrote—he’s the author of Four Thousand Weeks and something of a Zen master of thoughtful productivity. Burkeman argues that knowing when you’re done for the day is more about tuning into a feeling than hitting some arbitrary metric. It’s about being realistic about what you can accomplish and—here’s the kicker—being okay with that limitation.

For me, this is where theory collides with practice. I might envision my perfect day, but at a certain point, I have to draw a line in the pixelated sand and tell myself, “Done. This is it. This is what I could do today.”

I’m slowly learning to let that be sufficient, to feel a hint of pride in the small victories. Because if you don’t create that moment of closure, the to-do list becomes a vampire, sucking the life out of your psyche, feeding the parts of you that whisper you’re not enough. It’s that insidious voice that yanks you from the aroma of grilled chicken and veggies to the harsh glare of your screen for one more “can’t wait” email.

IV

The true meditation, for me, begins after the wipe-down ritual: it’s about coming back to the glory of the present moment, over and over again. You know, the basic stuff.

This practice is what usually keeps me from succumbing to the bat-signal of my powered-down computer. Instead, I allow my awareness to resettle on the here and now, to the crackling grill, those golden ears of corn charring just right, that Californian summer sky, so blue, it makes my eyes ache. I focus on my sweet little son, whose face now lights up with a smile whenever I catch his eye and pull a goofy ass expression.

On a deeper level, I’m always practicing being done, in every sense—because birth, death, love, and life’s turning points arrive unannounced, their timing held close in the hands of the universe. One of my meditation teachers likens us to ships sailing out to sea, destined to sink; we just don’t know when. Another advises, “Stop making stuff.” He means to cease the mental chatter, but more profoundly, to stop fabricating our very selves.

In Zen Buddhism, there’s a concept called Shoji: the continuous cycle of creation and dissolution happening in every instant. It challenges us to embrace impermanence—from our ever-replenishing inboxes to the subtle shifts in our self-perception. In this light, done isn’t an endpoint, but a recurring moment-to-moment choice to accept what is.

When you repeatedly sink into the present, allowing your muscles to melt and your cells to exhale, you eventually forget to construct your identity. Instead, you dissolve into God-Space. Here, I taste a freedom that transcends emails and work—a release from self-importance, habitual hangups, and the desperate need to prove myself. For a dude who tends to shackle himself, it’s complete unshackling. This is my true north: practicing the art of being ready to die.