I tried the viral ‘6.30 rule’ to decompress after work – it didn’t go to plan

Imagine being able to flip a switch on your worries, like in that song from The Book of Mormon: “Turn it off like a light switch – just go click!” Well, that is precisely what I’ve spent the last week trying to do.

I’m terrible at mentally switching off after work. So when my editor assigned me to have a crack at the “6.30 challenge”, I was curious, if a bit sceptical.

The premise seems simple: after 6.30pm, you stop giving unnecessary worries your attention. If you can’t do anything about a problem tonight, it waits until tomorrow. But I soon realised this is bloody hard in practice.

So, did I actually master the mythical art of switching off? Here are the rules I set to give myself a fighting chance.

Rule 1: Disrobe immediately

My 6.30pm deadline happens on the bus home, meaning I needed a physical trigger to tell my brain the workday was done.

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Every night, I got home, showered, and put my pyjamas on immediately. Within five minutes of walking through the front door: outside clothes, be gone!

Simple as it sounds, it was a surprisingly effective physical cue to shut up shop.

Rule 2: Limit the information overload

Instead of stuffing my brain with even more information at the end of a long day, I listened to music.

It honestly felt great to do the dishes while belting out Taylor Swift and Duran Duran instead of listening to a newsy or true crime podcast.

There is also SO much research showing that listening to even just one song you love can do wonders for your dopamine levels.

Rule 3: A cap on screen time

There was no universe in which I was going to ban TikTok and Instagram after 6.30pm.

So I did what any seemingly grown 26-year-old woman would do and compromised.

For the first time, I put actual limits on both apps: 30 minutes of TikTok and 30 minutes of Instagram a day.

It was restrictive enough to stop endless scrolling without being unrealistic – heck, I’m still using the limits now.

Rule 4: Embrace the brain dump

I am very familiar with lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and suddenly remembering five urgent things I need to do tomorrow.

Now, I write them down in my Notes app, a habit I’d already started, but fully committed to during the Mel Robbins 24-hour reset challenge.

Speaking of Robbins, I also started getting into bed an hour before I actually want to sleep after hearing her recommend a wind-down buffer.

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So, did I actually stop worrying after 6.30pm?

Drumroll please … nope.

Six days later, I was still perfectly capable of worrying at 6.31pm, 8pm, and 10pm. But by the end, I wasn’t sure that mattered – trying to police every thought sometimes made me even more aware of what was going through my head.

Six days is also not long. While looking into the challenge, I found many people who tried it said they kept at it consistently for months.

Having said this, the little habits I introduced DID make my evenings feel noticeably calmer.

So, unfortunately, for now at least, I’m still going to have the odd worrisome thought beyond 6.30pm.

And you know what? That’s OK. I’m just not letting it take over the whole evening. Baby steps!