🥁 22 Creative Rituals to Alchemize Your Work Day, Week, Month & Year

I’m Allison Stadd, drummer turned CMO, and I write for people who want the way we work to work for us.

“I have excerpts of your newsletter written on post-its, plastered over my screens at my desk.” — Kat, subscriber

I’m experiencing a fascinating paradox lately.

It’s distressing and comforting to be grappling with the meaning of work while so many in my circle and my feeds are doing the same.

It’s like, I’m questioning the purpose of the nearly two decades of my life I’ve invested in my career but I’m doing so alongside so many smart, talented, ambitious people who are doing the exact same.

Something that helps: rituals.

Rituals are such a helpful tool for meaning making. They’re like footholds on a rock climbing wall to create connection, either inward or with fellow climbers.

Anthropologist and cognitive scientist Dimitris Xygalatas refers to rituals as “a very ancient social technology”; humans have been doing rain dances and fire walking for hundreds of years. There’s something profound about leaning into a mechanism that our brethren have been drawn to forever.

Rituals also press intention into the folds and creases of everyday life. Think about athletes doing weird ritualistic movements before they take a foul shot or step up to bat. Ernest Becker, the cultural anthropologist, argued that rituals provide a tangible sense of control in a chaotic, mortal existence.

And call me crazy but life has never felt more chaotic or mortal than now.

In a world where work feels broken at the most fundamental level, and we’re trying to define the role of work in our lives to find meaning in our day-to-day without burning down our health, relationships, or sense of self: rituals are a flame retardant.

They’re also an opportunity to be creative. Who says your mundane morning coffee routine can’t become a daily multisensory ritual of making the best goddamn cup of coffee you’ve ever had?

In the context of work life, I’ve found it helpful to bucket rituals into time horizons. Rituals can alchemize our work day, week, month and year, through the slow, stubborn work of transforming the ordinary into ours.

Below, 22 refreshing rituals for each of those time horizons, from my favorite weekly review questions to EOY appreciation emails.

• Rose, Bud & Thorn or Pit, Peak & Plateau: As the day winds down, or over dinner, or before bed, reflect on your Rose (daily highlight), Bud (something you’re looking forward to), and Thorn (daily lowlight); or your Pit (daily low), Peak (daily high), and Plateau (something simultaneously happy and sad).

• Light a candle when you sit down to do your deepest daily work, and blow it out when you’re done; if you’re not a candle person, try spraying a scent or turning on a specific playlist

• My hairstylist Jamie (I get so much life wisdom from her) turned her morning coffee routine into making “the best goddamn cup of coffee she’s ever had”; she uses high-quality beans and savors each step of the process

• During COVID my husband and I started an evening Kombucha’Clock ritual where we’d share a kombucha and catch up on our days; if you don’t like kombucha you could try a Mindful Matcha Moment or another daily routine around a comforting or refreshing drink

• In the past I’ve bookended my leadership team’s week with two syncs:

  • Magic Mondays (kick off by asking each person for their weekend highlight, then discuss what’s coming up for the week ahead, plus any challenges or blockers)

  • Failure Fridays (everyone shares something they failed at or messed up that week, and what they learned from it)

• Austin Kleon has done a Friday pizza and movie night with his kids for the last 5 years; it strikes me as a great ritual to wind down the work week and worth trying even if you don’t have kids—you could replace the pizza with a potluck and the movie with board games or pop culture trivia, for example

• Hollywood producer Brian Grazer has “curiosity conversations” every other week with interesting people across industries; he schedules a no-agenda sync to connect with people whose work interests him

• During time periods when I feel particularly overwhelmed I like doing a weekly brain dump; I think of it like mise en place for intellectual labor: you prep and lay out all the ingredients and equipment for your recipe (projects and tasks) so cooking (executing) is more efficient

• I’m also a fan of a weekly review; try Ness Labs’s “Plus, Minus, Next” format: write down “+” for what worked, “–” for what didn’t go so well, and “→” for what you plan to do next

  • I also like these weekly reflection questions from Sari Azout:

    • What’s the right lesson to take from this week?

    • What am I currently procrastinating about?

    • Whose advice will help me solve my problems?

    • What’s my current biggest priority?

    • What’s weighing on my mind?

• Take a weekly creative sabbath: set aside one day a week when you focus on restful, analog activity like reading, drawing, enjoying the outdoors

• Take a weekly literary field trip: read something every week from a field with no obvious connection to your own: marine biology, medieval history, competitive BBQ; the Substack explore page is a great jumping-off point

• We kick off each of my monthly team all-hands meetings with Random Question Roulette; I've learned more through question roulette about members of my teams than I have through skip syncs or team lunches

• Celebrate “Twos-days” (any 22nd day of the month), an excuse to send two “thinking of you” notes to people you’ve been meaning to reach out to

• Write glowing Google Maps reviews for the best local restaurants, stores, and museums you’ve checked out that month

• Do a monthly "shelf audit": look at the books, podcasts, newsletters, accounts you're consuming across digital and analog platforms and reflect on which ones are actually sparking brain joy; unsubscribe from or quit the ones that aren’t

• Capture a monthly highlight reel to review in total at the end of the year; write down the achievements and learnings you banked each month

• I’ve often done annual team superlatives each holiday season, silly things like “Best Socks” or “Most Likely To Quote The Office Literally All The Time”

• Write EOY appreciation emails to the authors of books you loved that came out that year

• I like doing a digital spring cleaning each spring to spruce up my systems (see here for my choose-your-own-adventure digital spring cleaning guide)

• I’ve completed an annual self-review since 2015; here’s my detailed guide including the template I’ve honed over 10 years

• Do an annual "anti-goals" exercise alongside your goal-setting: write down what you explicitly do NOT want for the coming year

We’re all asking the same questions right now:

• What is work actually for?

• How much of my deepest self do I owe it?

• Based on those beliefs, how do I make better decisions about where to invest my energy each day?

Rituals won’t provide an answer key for those questions, unfortunately.

But they’ll keep us company while we figure it all out. And right now, that’s not nothing.

Have a great week,

Allison

Folks across 42 U.S. states and 73 countries from companies like LVMH, Unilever, Salesforce, The Atlantic, and The Home Depot are reading along. You in?

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