A small backup plan for days that fall apart

Relatives turn up unannounced. The Federal Highway turns into a car park. A child is unwell at two in the morning. On days like these, the practice you planned quietly disappears, and then you feel bad about that as well.

A backup plan stops the second part. You decide ahead of time what a smaller version looks like, so a hard day shrinks your practice instead of cancelling it.

What is a three-size plan?

It is three versions of the same practice, written down once. You choose between them on the day.

• Usual: the sit you normally aim for, for example ten quiet minutes.
• Short: a version that takes about one minute, in a chair or in the car.
• Tiny: three slow breaths, taken wherever you happen to be.

All three count as practice. The point is that you always have a next size down, so the answer is never “all or nothing”.

Why plan in advance?

Because a stressed brain is poor at designing. In the middle of a rushed morning, you will not calmly invent a one-minute option. If it is already written on a card or in your phone, you only have to pick.

Planning also removes the guilt. When the plan says “on a jam day I do the tiny size”, doing the tiny size is following the plan, not cheating on it.

Try this: write your ladder

You need about five minutes.

1. Write your usual practice in one line, with a place and a rough length.
2. Write a short version that needs no cushion, no quiet room and no app. Sitting in the parked car works well.
3. Write a tiny version: three slow breaths, or ten seconds of noticing sounds.
4. List the three disruptions most likely to hit you, such as a late meeting, a visit from family, or a broken night.
5. Next to each one, write which size you will use.

Keep the card somewhere you will see it. If you would like help, the practice cue planner lets you note each size, and what you type stays in your browser.

What if the disruption lasts longer than a day?

A week of exams, a trip back to the kampung or a new baby can stretch a disruption into days. Treat the whole stretch as one long hard day and stay on the smaller sizes. The guide on building a routine when your schedule changes has more for these seasons.

If you do drop the practice for a while, coming back is simple, and restarting after missed days walks through it. If you track your sessions, remember that a practice does not need a perfect streak.

Where to go next

Read choosing one small habit if you have not yet picked your usual size. The full set of guides lives on the keeping a practice going hub.