Ep. 5: Shut the Laptop. No, Really: Recovery That Actually Works

Before Your Feet Hit the Floor: How to Prime Your Day on Purpose

It’s 5:30 p.m. You’ve made 47 decisions, answered the emails, and solved everyone else’s problems. So you shut the laptop and you’re done, right? Not quite. You’re prepping dinner, fielding questions—and mentally sitting in tomorrow’s 9 a.m. meeting.

We want to be excellent at our work. We want to keep our commitments to the people counting on us. We want to be present at our own dinner table—and, if we’re being really honest, we want to feel fully alive again, not just productive.

Excellence isn’t running at full power 24/7. Excellence needs recovery.

But how do you actually turn off when the deadlines are real? Really?

In this episode of the Make Life Count podcast, we’re talking about what it takes to truly shut the laptop—and what to put back in its place.

We’ll get honest about what disappears first when life gets busy (spoiler: anything that’s ours), and why our ability to rest starts with whether our worth is tied to our productivity. We’ll walk through the four recovery experiences from organizational psychology research and Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s seven types of rest, because sleep alone doesn’t fix every kind of exhaustion. Along the way, you’ll hear about a 15-year-old who loves golf because “my brain goes quiet,” a young business owner up until 3 a.m. on TikTok because “it just feels so good,” and a CEO client who discovered that one beer a month with an old friend gives him what he needs.

Our hope? That you stop sacrificing the things that make you come alive, that you become as intentional about your recovery as you are about your productivity, and that you remember you are a human being, not a human doing.

Make life count.

The Make Life Count Dare

Do something this week that makes you come alive—and put it on your calendar. Then post a picture and hashtag it #MakeLifeCount so we can help each other make life count.

Hosts: Krista Gilbert, Emily Love, Emily Jamieson (EmJ) — The Transformation Triad

Research & Resources Referenced

• Sabine Sonnentag & Charlotte Fritz — identified four recovery experiences that restore our capacity after work: psychological detachment, relaxation, control, and mastery (The Recovery Experience Questionnaire, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2007).
• Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith — the seven types of rest: physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social, and spiritual (drdaltonsmith.com; book: Sacred Rest).
• Dr. Caroline Leaf — daily “mental housekeeping”: giving your mind about 16 minutes of undistracted time to let it sort and reset (drleaf.com).
• NASA, Artemis II — the idea that we send people instead of robots because we’re sending love to the moon (Love from the moon)

Connect with The Transformation Triad

• Website: thetransformationtriad.com
• Instagram: @thetransformationtriad
• YouTube: @thetransformationtriad
• Contact: thrive@thetransformationtriad.com

Your life is happening now. Live your purpose. Love your people. Own your practice. MAKE LIFE COUNT.