Daily Boosters to Keep You Going (Even on 12-Tab Days)

There are days when I feel like I’m crushing it. And then there are 12-tab days. 

You know the ones. Your inbox has 47 unread messages. Your teams is going off, and your face is on a call but your brain is already on tomorrow’s to-do list.  

On those days, my to-do list could honestly just be: 

• Panic  

• Try to fix everything at once 

• Wonder if I’m the problem 

• Add more caffeine (current poison: coconut & berry Redbull) 

• Regret 

At some point, I realized brute-forcing my way through the chaos wasn’t it. It didn’t make me productive. It just made me tired, twitchy, and emotionally unavailable for the rest of the day. 

So, I gave up on hustle culture and built myself a small, imperfect system. 

Not a full-blown wellness girlie routine. Not an app with soft piano sounds. Definitely not a journal with golden-hour aesthetics. Just a few grounding habits I use to claw my way back to something resembling calm. It’s not foolproof. But it helps. 

1. The Walk. 

Not groundbreaking. Still underrated. 

I get it - no one wants to walk in the Middle Eastern heat. But at some point, during the day, I physically remove myself from my screen and walk.  It could be within the building; could be laps around the office. Sometimes it’s me pacing around my apartment like I’m buffering.  

I play one song. No podcast. No work call. Just music that makes me feel alive again - bonus points if it’s slightly dramatic. You have to romanticize it a little. 

This resets my brain in the quickest, kindest way. And no, I don’t count steps. I count how much calmer I feel after. 

2. The Three-Task Rule. 

When the list is overwhelming, I zoom in. 

I pick three things that actually matter for the day. Not the 20 small distractions. Just three that will make me feel like I moved forward. 

If I finish those? Cool. If not? At least I didn’t spend the day spiraling in tab #9 while trying to do everything and finishing nothing. 

3. The “Not Right Now” List. 

I created a new section in my Notes app titled:  “Yes, But Not Today.” 

Anytime I catch myself thinking, “Oh I should also do that,” I throw it in there instead of letting it hijack my current focus. 

It’s like building a waiting room for my brain, where everything has a place, just not this place. 

4. The 10-Minute Disconnect. 

Zero screens. Zero noise. Just silence and maybe a wall to stare at dramatically. 

I used to feel weird about this. Like I was “wasting time” or “being lazy.” 

Now? I treat it like a mini hard reboot. It’s where the best ideas land. Or where nothing happens - and that’s also fine. 

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is sit down and shut your brain up for a second. 

5. The Kind Reminder. 

This is the one I repeat to myself daily: You are not a machine. 

No color-coded calendar, bullet journal, or dangerously cute productivity app will override the fact that you're a person; with limits, bad days, and a brain that sometimes needs a second (or ten). 

You will mess things up. You will forget things. You will have weeks where everything feels slightly off. That’s not failure. That’s just life. The goal isn’t to eliminate the chaos. It’s to find your way through it with a little less panic and a little more peace. 

So no, we don’t have a five-step miracle routine to transform your workday. But I do have these tiny anchors/habits that give me control when things feel out of control. 

They’re not perfect, sometimes they’re not always enough, but they help!