chapter 34
my favorite ritual: closing duties
remember when you did the exercise of being kind to little you? Well, now I am going to talk more about being kind to future you. Anyone who has worked in the service industry is familiar with opening and closing duties. Servers and bartenders have “side duties” in addition to serving customers that help get the restaurant open and set the next shift up for success. Openers will cut lemons, set tables, polish wineglasses, and start the coffee. At the end of their shift, they will clean the tables, restock the salt and pepper, and roll silverware.
Closers will put the plates away, clean the booths, and disinfect the soda machine. Side duties are not the servers’ “main job,” but they must get done in order for servers to do their main job of waiting tables.
I’ve already talked about how, when you have the opportunity to do a task and struggle with the motivation to start it, it might be helpful to think you are doing it as a kindness to “future you.” What does future you need to function tomorrow? On a good day, I like to unload and reload my dishwasher, pick up some toys, pack kid lunches for the morning, throw away whatever trash is lying around, take my medication, and make cold-brew coffee for the morning. It only takes about thirty minutes to do these little closing duties, but I know it’s going to make future KC have an easier time functioning tomorrow.
The power in closing duties is the power of permission.
Permission to care for tomorrow you without having to make things perfect or up to other people’s standards. But closing duties are only powerful if you also have permission to not do them. The key is that while doing them is a way of taking care of tomorrow you,
sometimes not doing them is a way of taking care of right now you.
That’s why I have a survival day list. Sometimes I’m sick or stressed.
Other times I could be having a perfectly great day and abruptly at 4:00 pm feel like I’ve hit a brick wall. When that happens the priority becomes getting my kids to bed with kindness. For those days we have survival closing duties. What’s the bare minimum I need to function tomorrow? Clean baby bottles, throw food waste away so it doesn’t spoil, and take my medication. So I open up my dishwasher full of clean dishes, take three bowls out and put the dirty baby bottles in their place, and run it again. I throw food wrappers away to prevent bugs, and I take my medication. It takes five minutes, and the motivation is kindness, kindness to both right now KC and tomorrow KC. Then I sit down and watch television and hang out with my husband. It’s a true win-win situation: right now me gets to rest and future me gets to function.
Timing: I do my closing duties right after I feed my kids dinner. I put my youngest to sleep because I can lay her in the crib and walk right out, and while Michael puts our older daughter to sleep (the longer and more labor-intensive of the two bedtime jobs) I walk downstairs and roll right into closing duties. If I sit down and relax first, it becomes very difficult to get up again. Butting your closing duties up against another activity where you are already up can be key. I typically wrap up around the time Michael gets done with bedtime and I officially clock out for the night.
don’t forget: momentum is key!
Here is what to do if you find yourself not doing your closing duties list: (1) Make a shorter list. Even if there is just one thing on it. (2) Change what is on the list. If you have things on there you think you are “supposed” to do but don’t really care about, of course you will not feel motivated. Put something on there you really care about.
Maybe you should do the dishes every night so you don’t get bugs.
But maybe you actually care about having coffee ready to brew first thing in the morning. (3) Change the timing of when you do closing
duties. Perhaps it works better if you do them right as you walk in the door from work. Don’t even take off your shoes; just roll right into it.
Maybe doing them as opening duties suits you better because you have more energy and motivation then. This isn’t about doing what you are supposed to; it’s about being kind to yourself. You can grow and change the list once you have gained momentum.
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