Routine can feel heavy sometimes. You get up, look at your phone, go through breakfast, and get into another hectic day. Your leisure time, even the free time, can already turn into a list of tasks: see friends, browse the Internet, perhaps watch something. It is simple to go through life as if in an autopilot without much thought of how you are feeling and what you actually like.

It is in this place that the concept of small resets is influential. A reset does not necessarily involve a huge vacation or a significant life alteration. It may be as simple as a stroll in the evening after work, putting the phone on silence an hour, or having a cup of tea and no screen around. These mini pauses provide your brain with sufficient room to rest and almost like hitting the pause button on a lengthy film.

Reflect on the day when you were uncharacteristically peaceful. Perhaps you read a book, were cooking slowly, or had been sitting at a window by a rain. Time had a different way of moving. You did not have the next task in your mind every other second. That is not a coincidental feeling, but it is a result of being in the moment, and you can create more of them intentionally.

To begin with, one can select one of the usual activities and make it slow. As an illustration, you can have lunch without a screen when you are scrolling your phone rather than having it on. Pay attention to the flavor of what you eat, smell, feel. This little shift can turn your energy, it sounds easy but make it. This also applies to your travel or commute time. Even when you’re on something like London city airport chauffeur transfers, you can make that ride a mini-vacation: look out of the window, shake out your shoulders and leave your thoughts to flow rather than re-reading the messages and emails.

It is also useful to establish soft boundaries of your time. You are not expected to say yes to all the plans or response immediately to all the messages. A small way of safeguarding your peace is saying no or not at this moment. Firstly it may seem odd or even selfish; however in the long run you will realise how it gets you more energy to do the things and people that actually count.

Naturally, life does not always go slow due to your desire to make it slow. Weekends when it is busy, deadlines, and unforeseen issues will still exist. However, once you become accustomed to introducing little breaks in your life, stressful situations become more manageable. You understand how to withdraw, even a few minutes, and return to yourself with less clouded mind.

Ultimately, you do not have to have an ideal plan in order to be improved. All you need are a couple of common habits that will remind you that you are not a machine, but a person. A single stroll, a single bite, a single ride-up, these miniature experiences can alter the entire experience of your entire day.