Five Minutes in the Middle of a Bad Day
For a day that has gone wrong by eleven in the morning and still has hours left in it. It helps you take a deliberate break instead of pushing through on fumes, and decide what the rest of the day actually has to contain.
Mindfulness · Mindfulness · Self-Care · 8 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Stop mid-task rather than at a finish line — there is no natural break coming.
- Leave the room you have been sitting in — the same four walls keep the same mood going.
- Put the phone in a drawer for the five minutes — a break with scrolling in it is not a break.
- Drink a full glass of water slowly — it is a small ask and it is almost always owed.
- Look at something more than ten feet away — close focus all morning tires more than the work.
- Say what has actually gone wrong in one sentence — a bad day is usually two things, not twelve.
- Cross one thing off the afternoon on purpose — the day got shorter whether you agree or not.
- Go back in on the easiest thing left — restarting needs a low bar, not the hard task.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.