Habits under five minutes
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20-20-20 eye breaks
Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. The optometrist's rule for screen workers.
Screen worker Body care Remote work -
A cold rinse to finish the shower
Last 60 seconds of your morning shower, water on cold. Small dose of difficulty, before any other choice.
Morning routine -
A daily plant water round
Two minutes a day on the houseplants. Quick check, a sip if needed. The smallest available living-things care habit.
Home care Nature -
A daily self-compassion break
Two minutes a day for self-compassion. Acknowledge what's hard. Speak to yourself the way you'd speak to a friend.
Recovery -
A daily thanks text
Each day, send one short message thanking one specific person for something specific.
Caregiving Connection -
A no-spend month
One month, no discretionary spending. Bills and groceries fine. Coffees, takeaways, impulse buys, no.
Finance -
A weekly no-news day
One day a week with no news. No headlines, no podcasts, no social-feed scrolling. The world will be there tomorrow.
Digital detox Rest day Recovery -
A weekly rest day from training
One day a week, no exercise. Active recovery only. The discipline that protects the rest of the training week.
Recovery Rest day -
Bedtime by 10:30
A consistent lights-out time, weekdays. Often the single biggest lever for the rest of your habits.
Wind-down -
Block blue light after sunset
Warm-tone screens after sunset. Blue-light blockers, night mode, or just dim the room and the laptop together.
Screen worker Wind-down -
Box breathing
A four-second pattern: inhale, hold, exhale, hold. A reset that takes a minute and works in any context.
Recovery Focus -
Brain dump on waking
Three minutes, on paper, listing everything in your head before the day starts. ADHD-friendly clearing ritual.
ADHD-friendly Morning routine Focus -
Compliment one person, daily
Each day, give one specific compliment to one person. Specific, in person, and for something they actually did.
Connection -
Dark and cool bedroom
Bedroom dark and cool, every night. Blackout curtains or eye mask, thermostat at 17–19°C.
Wind-down -
Five-minute stretch after the shower
Five minutes of gentle stretching right after the morning shower, while the muscles are warm. Stacked, not added.
Movement Body care Morning routine -
Floss every night
After brushing, before bed. Floss between every tooth, every night. The most-skipped basic in adult dental health.
Wind-down Body care -
Glass of water on waking
A full glass of water before anything else. Coffee waits. Phone waits. The day starts hydrated.
Morning routine Body care -
Hand cream after every wash
After washing your hands, hand cream. Always. The habit that stops winter hands from cracking.
Body care -
Hourly posture check
Once an hour, reset posture: shoulders down, ribs over hips, screen at eye level. Two seconds, all day.
Screen worker Body care -
Make the bed, every morning
Bed made within ten minutes of leaving it. Sheets straight, duvet pulled up. The smallest available daily order.
Home care Morning routine -
No caffeine after 2pm
Coffee, tea, energy drinks all stop at 2pm. The simplest sleep intervention with the biggest effect.
Wind-down -
No phone until 9am
The first hour of the day belongs to something else. The phone waits in the kitchen until nine.
Morning routine Digital detox Focus -
No screens after 9pm
Phone, laptop, television, all off or out of reach after 9. Books, paper, conversation, bed.
Wind-down Digital detox -
One new word a day
Pick up one word you don't know, write it down with its definition, try to use it.
Learning -
One no-spend day a week
Pick a day. No discretionary spending on that day. Groceries fine, bills fine, Tuesday coffee, not today.
Finance -
One photo a day
Take one deliberate photograph each day. Not a selfie, not a snap of the food. One thing, looked at.
Creative practice Nature -
Phone down at school pickup
Phone in pocket, eyes up, from gate to home. A small protected slot for being present at a fragile transition.
New parent Digital detox Caregiving -
Same wake time, every day
Wake at the same time, weekday and weekend. The single most reliable lever for sleep quality.
Wind-down Morning routine -
Single-tab work sessions
One browser tab, one task, one 25-minute timer. A small rule with an outsized effect.
Focus Screen worker Digital detox -
Sixty-second plank, daily
One minute on the elbows, every day. The smallest possible core habit, run for thirty days.
Movement Body care -
Skincare, morning and night
A simple two-step routine, twice a day. Cleanse and moisturise. Same time, same place, every day.
Body care -
Stand up every hour
One break every hour, on a timer or on a natural cue. Sixty seconds standing, stretching, refilling water.
Screen worker Body care -
Sunscreen, every morning
Broad-spectrum SPF on the face every morning, regardless of weather. The single highest-leverage skin habit there is.
Morning routine Body care -
The two-minute rule
If a task takes less than two minutes, do it now. The single highest-leverage productivity rule for ADHD brains.
ADHD-friendly Focus -
Three things, every morning
Three specific things you're grateful for, written down or said aloud. Specific, not generic. Daily.
Morning routine -
Two-minute tidy
Set a two-minute timer. Tidy whatever's nearest. Stop when the timer stops.
Home care ADHD-friendly -
Weekly savings transfer
Each week, manually transfer one fixed amount to savings. Small, consistent, conscious.
Finance
Plan a custom habit in the Cycle Planner.
The library is a starting point, not the menu. If your next cycle is something we haven't written up, open the planner with a blank cycle and shape it from scratch.
Open the Cycle Planner