A one-minute check-in with yourself: three questions to ask

A one-minute check-in is what it sounds like. Once in the middle of the day, you stop and ask yourself three questions: how is my body, how is my mood, and what do I need? You answer honestly, in a few words, and then you do one small thing about it.

It sounds almost too simple to bother with. The point is that a working day is very good at hiding how you are. You can be thirsty, hunched and irritable for hours without noticing any of it, because your attention is on the screen. A minute spent looking the other way catches those things while they are still easy to fix.

The three questions

Take your hands off the keyboard, sit back and look away from the screen. Then go through these in order. The body comes first because it often explains the mood: a lot of afternoon irritability turns out to be hunger, thirst or a stiff neck.

How is my body?

Start with the body, because it is the easiest to read. Scan from the top down.

• Eyes. Tired, dry, squinting at the screen?
• Jaw and shoulders. Clenched, or lifted toward your ears?
• Neck and back. Hunched, stiff, leaning in?
• Stomach. Hungry, thirsty, one coffee too many?
• Energy. Alert, flat or wired?

You don't need to fix anything yet. Just notice. Most people find at least one thing they had no idea about a minute earlier. If the same tight jaw or raised shoulders turn up day after day, signs your workday is too tense goes through what they can mean.

How is my mood?

Then ask how you feel, and try to answer with a real word. "Fine" and "busy" don't count; they are what we say to colleagues in the corridor. Try something more exact: anxious about the three o'clock, irritated with that thread, bored, flat, quietly pleased, overwhelmed.

If no word comes, use a rough map. Is the feeling pleasant or unpleasant? Is it high energy or low? Tense and buzzing is different from tired and low, and each one needs something different.

What do I need?

This is the question that makes the check-in useful. Given what you noticed, what would help over the next hour? Often the answer is small and physical: water, food, a stretch, five minutes outside. Sometimes it is about the work: asking a question you have been avoiding, finishing one thing before you start another, saying no to something. Sometimes it is a person: a message to a friend, or a word with a colleague.

Why naming a feeling helps

It can seem pointless to tell yourself "I'm anxious". Surely you already knew. Often you didn't, not clearly, and research suggests the naming itself does something.

Psychologists call it affect labeling: putting a feeling into words. Studies, including brain imaging work from UCLA, suggest that naming an emotion can take a little of the edge off it, compared with simply feeling it. Other research suggests that people who describe their feelings in finer detail, telling disappointed apart from resentful, tend to cope with stress somewhat better. The effects are modest and most of the studies are done in labs, but they match a common experience: a vague bad mood is harder to deal with than a specific one.

There is a practical side too. "I feel bad" leads nowhere. "I'm tense because I haven't eaten and the deadline moved" leads to lunch and a message to your manager.

What to do with the answers

A check-in only matters if something follows from it. Keep the response small, ideally something you can do in the next five minutes.

Sometimes the answer is that you are fine. That is a good result, not a wasted minute. Notice it and carry on.

Making it a habit

The check-in sticks best when it hangs on something that already happens around midday.

• After lunch, before you open your email again.
• Between two meetings, in the gap before the next one starts.
• When you refill your water, standing at the tap.
• From a note on your desk, with the three questions written on it, propped where your eyes land when you look away from the screen.

Keep it to a minute. The check-in is a glance, not a therapy session. If one of the questions opens up something big, note it and come back to it later, on a walk, with a friend or in a journal in the evening.

Once a day is plenty. If you like writing things down, a line in Notes is enough: the time, a word for your mood, one need. After a few weeks you may see patterns you would never have spotted otherwise, like a slump every Thursday afternoon or a jaw that clenches before one particular meeting.

When a check-in is not enough

A check-in is for ordinary days. If the answer to "how is my mood" has been low, numb, hopeless or anxious on most days for a couple of weeks or more, or you are struggling to sleep, eat or get through the day, that is more than a minute can fix. Book a visit with your doctor, or a counselor or therapist; this is exactly what they are there for.

A nudge in the middle of the day

The catch with a midday check-in is that you forget it on the days you need it most, which are the busy ones. That is what the Check-in moment in Notchpals is for. If Boba, the tiny dragon from the Self-care area, is in your crew, it picks one moment between 11 AM and 5 PM while you are at the Mac, drops out of the notch and asks how you are.

BobaIf today's hard, I'll sit on your shoulder and be warm. How are you, really?

There is nowhere to type an answer and no mood log to keep. You answer in your head, do the small thing, and press Done; Boba has no idea what you said to yourself, and that is how it should be. If the question arrives while you are mid-email, press Later and Boba tries again in 20 minutes. A second Later means no check-in today, which is fine now and then, and worth noticing if it happens every day. If Boba's enthusiasm is a bit much for you, swap in Kapi the capybara as your Self-care character, who asks the same thing very slowly.