Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

A 5 step process to unplug, reset, and come back fresh

Merry Christmas Eve! 🎄

Queue the “slams laptop shut till 2025” meme posts.

We are officially entering the final week of the year… at least from a calendar perspective…

I say that because the week between Christmas and New Year’s seems to live in a void between the previous year and the one to come. We’ve closed the chapter on 2024, but with family gatherings and holiday parties still ahead we aren’t quite ready to dive into a “new year, new me” mindset just yet.

And that’s OK.

There is nothing wrong with taking a break from our goals and disconnecting from work. In fact, it’s healthy.

But the way you do it matters.

You can spend this week eating, drinking, staying up too late, and getting out of routines, or you can do a purposeful reset.

Downloading Updates…

Most people never turn off their devices. Instead, we close them, put them in sleep mode, or throw them on the charger overnight. As a result, day after day we open new programs and applications, start new tabs in our browsers, and create dozens of open loops.

Eventually, our devices slow down and we are forced to deal with it.

We do the same thing in our personal lives with our careers, ambitions, and pursuits. We never really turn them off, we simply go to sleep and start over again.

But like our devices, we need purposeful shutdowns. Shutdowns are when we download updates, install new features, and unlock new benefits that time and innovation have given us.

Today, I want to walk you through 5 steps to a successful Hard reset.

They are:

  1. Close Open Loops

  2. Turn it off (or down)

  3. Audit & Reflect

  4. Do things you enjoy

  5. Cast vision & build excitement

1. Close Open Loops

If you hold the power button down on your device, you can force it to shut off, but if you’ve ever done this, you also know when you power it back on, everything pops back up.

It can be chaos.

The same thing applies to your life.

If you slam your laptop shut the Monday before Christmas and don’t open it again until 2025 all the meetings you pushed and work you delayed will be waiting for you when you return.

As a result, any rest you get from taking time off will immediately disappear.

Instead, try closing loops before disconnecting, and I’m not just talking about at work. Life admin tasks stack, the “shoulds” and “have to’s” have been piling on for weeks or months and all you want to do is take a break. But those “open tabs” never really get closed on their own, and trying to push them further down the road doesn’t work.

You need to take time to close those loops so you can come back with a clean state.

Step 1: Take 15-20 minutes to list out all of your open loops. Then, schedule 45 minutes to close them.

This could be things like finishing a project that’s due in early January, sending out thank you notes for Christmas, calling the friend that you’ve been playing phone tag with, or doing a deep clean in your house that you’ve been delaying.

I guarantee you’ll run better, lighter, and faster, as you kick off 2025 with these tasks out of the way.

2. Turn it off (or down)

Once you’ve closed loops and open tabs in your life, turn everything off (or down; I realize not everyone, myself included, can fully take off the last week of the year).

Turning off devices plays an important role in the longevity and performance of devices.

When you download a new software update on your phone, the first thing your phone asks you to do is restart. Your phone needs to shut down and restart to enable the newest features or benefits from the software update. 

But this applies to us as well. 

We need to turn off from time to time to reflect on, actualize, and implement learnings from our previous season.  The week between Christmas and New Year’s is a great opportunity to do that. Many people are off work, and if they aren’t they’re limited by people who are.

Take this week to disconnect as much as you can. both from work and social media. 

Step 2: Disconnect or set limits on how much you’ll spend connected

This of course applies to work, but this also applies to time spent connected online. To really turn off, it’s best to limit time online in general and to schedule time outside, completely disconnected, when possible.


I know that’s easier to do in Florida, but even a 15 minute walk outside with no technology each day will do wonder for your spirit, heart, and mind.

3. Audit & Reflect

Look, there is a reason the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield. 

We should be spending far more time looking forward than we do reminiscing on the past, but there is also a reason we have rearview mirrors. Spending time to audit our lives can reveal key insights and learnings that can help us move forward more freely.

Think of this step as downloading the software update files.

Step 3: Block of a couple of hours to answer important questions about your life and the previous year

The purpose of this exercise is to understand what happened, why it happened, and how it changed your perspective. It gives you clarity and helps provide a firm foundations for your 2025 planning and goals

Heres 8 questions I like to reflect on:

1. What was the best thing that happened each month?
2. What good things happened that weren’t planned?
3. What gave me energy?
4. What took it away?
5. Who were my biggest champions & challenegers
6. What did I learn this year?
7. What have I held on to that I need to let go of?
8. What did my perfect day look like?

4. Do things you enjoy

As wonderful as the holidays can be, they can also be stressful.

There are so many “shoulds” and “have tos” that can take all our free time if we aren’t careful. I want to give you permission to unsubscribe (not from me though 😉). Between now and New Year’s, do things that bring you life. Spend time with the ones you love the most, and do the hobbies you enjoy.

This is the time to curl up on the couch and read a book all day.

The week to play video games or binge anime.

The week to go fishing or play a few rounds of golf.

The week to draw or write poetry.

Do the things that provide value to your soul, not just value to your ambitions and goals.

Step 4: Schedule at least one day to do the things you love

Whatever your hobby is, make time to do a lot of it. I love to exercise so I think I’m going to try and do the Rapha 500 challenge on the bike when I get home (I’m missing a few days so I think I’ll fall short). It’s something I love and brings joy to my life.

Find those things and do it as often as you can this week.

5. Cast vision and build excitement

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” - Proverbs 29:18

Lots of people set goals for the new years, but I feel like most people set goals they feel they’re “supposed” to set.

“I need to lose 15 pounds” or “I want to get a new job or make more money”, but the problem with goals is they often don’t ladder up to a great, more exciting purpose.

I want to challenge you to cast a vision for your life that excites you. You don’t need to figure your life out. You don’t even need to have all of 2025 mapped out. However, it is critical to set a north star that you can look up at on your darkest days that reminds you why you do what you do.

Step 5: Write out an exciting vision for your life
I like this simple 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 format

Write down:

1 vision or north star objective
2 goals that ladder up to that north start
3 milestones or annual peaks to help you get there
4 reasons this vision or objective excites

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