The Small Action Recovery Plan
A repeated lesson from the journals is that recovery matters more than perfection. The day is not lost when focus breaks. It is lost when there is no recovery plan.
The small action recovery plan is a list of actions that take less than five minutes and return you to motion. Examples include cleaning the desk, opening the notebook, walking outside, doing a short stretch, or writing the next task on paper.
The experiment is to use one recovery action immediately after noticing drift. The faster the recovery, the less power the drift has.
- Keep a written list of five-minute recovery actions.
- Use one action before opening entertainment.
- Measure success by how quickly you restart, not by never drifting.