If your kid is crying at night, give it 5 minutes before you go through. A lot of the time, the self-soothe themselves back to sleep.

If you are feeling under the weather, take a day off, get some sleep, self medicate, and give your body time to help itself heal. If nothing has changed after a day or so, then visit the doctor. Hospitals and doctor’s offices are Petri dishes. You are more at risk at the hospital than at home if all you have is a common cold. Most of the time all you need is some rest and a little love. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that.

If you receive an email, slack, or text that activates you and you want to angrily respond, then switch tabs for a bit or go for a walk. Back in the pen and paper day, people had days to respond, and the sun still came up the next day.

If you’ve cleaned your plate and want to go back for more, take breath and enjoy some wine instead. Five minutes later you’ll probably not need a second helping of food.

If you have finished up some deep work, then stop, label the file correctly, and back it up in under the correct category. Less haste, more speed.

99% of things in life don’t need an instant response. And sometimes your response can be “I’m going to give it some more time,” or “I don’t know, what do you think”?

Photo by Paola Chaaya on Unsplash