VCU RamStrong Well-being blog

Maximize the 5 Most Important Minutes of Your Day

Tonya Dalton, author of The Joy of Missing Out, shares her five-minute end-of-day routine, which can double your productivity and happiness.

MINUTE ONE

Reflect on the day’s accomplishments. At the end of the day, it can be hard to think of the big picture of the good we’ve done, so taking time daily to reflect makes a huge difference.

MINUTE TWO

Focus on evaluating your day. Did you put too much on your plate? How was your stress? Attitude? Focus? If you consistently score high on stress and low on attitude, make some adjustments.

MINUTE THREE

Assess what you did to move closer to accomplishing your goals. A little progress each day matters.

MINUTE FOUR

It’s all about gratitude. Find three things you are grateful for. The trick is, they need to be specific to that day.

MINUTE FIVE

Set up your dominoes. Write down a few notes about tomorrow’s action items-the important tasks you would like to focus on in the day to come. However, you aren’t planning tomorrow; you are simply giving yourself guidance on what to work on next.