Life’s most soothing things are a child’s goodnight and sweet music.

Comfort rarely arrives from anything impressive. Two small things get named, and both work the same way: they come at the end of effort, ask nothing of you, and are over quickly. Whatever genuinely soothes tends to be ordinary, repeatable and available tonight rather than after some future achievement.

It is worth knowing your own short list. What actually settles you, as opposed to what distracts you, and when did you last let yourself have it? Put one of those at the end of today deliberately, not as a reward for finishing but as part of the day itself.