Ten quiet minutes before anyone needs you can set the tone for the whole day.

Whoever reaches you first tends to set the terms of your day. Open with messages, requests and somebody else’s urgency and you spend twelve hours responding; start with ten minutes that belong to you and the same day arrives with you already in it. The difference is not time saved, it is who gave the day its first instruction.

Take ten minutes tomorrow before the phone. Tea, a window, a page of a book, something simple enough to repeat. Guard them the way you would guard a shift you were being paid for.