Your working day needs an ending.

The laptop is closed, but the last meeting is still running in your head. Your phone lights up and you reply because it will only take a moment. An evening does not always disappear into one big task. It can dissolve into many small returns.

Look at habits and working conditions

The UK's Health and Safety Executive includes job demands, control and support in its approach to preventing work stress. It is a useful reminder that overload is more than an individual's difficulty switching off.

This article does not cover employment law. It offers ideas for conversations and planning where you have some room to make changes.

Leave tomorrow's work a starting point

Our suggestion is to write three things before you finish: what is done, what remains open and the first next step. The note does not need to cover every possible scenario. Its purpose is to spare you from holding unfinished work in your head.

For an incomplete task, name a concrete action. 'Open the document and complete the table' gives you more to work with than 'sort out the project'. Then close or put away your work things, if your space allows.

Make expectations explicit

If people expect evening replies, fighting each notification is unlikely to resolve the issue. Try clarifying what counts as urgent, how it should be communicated and what can wait until normal working hours.

Being on call, running a business or living through a demanding period may make a firm stopping point difficult. Look for a smaller protected stretch of time or ways to share the load. A pleasant ritual cannot resolve unrealistic demands on its own.

An ending for today: write down tomorrow's first step before you close your work. Your evening can then begin without the uncertainty of everything you must remember. If work stress keeps affecting your health and sleep, look for support beyond your own to-do list too.