Last week I wrote about a big reset after a heavy period of my life. This is a small one. After my mum passed away 6 years ago, I made a decision that felt almost radical at the time. Saturdays are mine. Completely.

Long sleep in. Lazy breakfast at my favourite café, newspaper from front to back, sudoku included. Easy meal in the evening, pizza usually. A film. Music. Sofa. Nothing that needs doing.

It took real effort to keep that boundary. The inner voices were loud. “You should be doing something useful.” “You’re wasting time.” That pressure to always be on is so embedded in how we live and work that switching off genuinely feels like a transgression.

I kept it anyway. Even during the periods when the work was too much. Even when other boundaries had dissolved. I kept it and cherished it.

And what I noticed, over time, was that my best days are early in the week. Not because I work harder then. Because I arrive differently. The Saturday distance gives me something I cannot get in any other way: the ability to see my work clearly again, rather than just being emerged in it.

Presence at work, the kind that actually changes the quality of your thinking and your communication, does not start on Monday morning. It starts with what you protect the day(s) before.

What is the one thing you have stopped doing that your best work probably depends on?