Coaches call timeouts to slow the other team’s momentum. You’re allowed to call one on a bad day too.

A bad run builds momentum of its own, and interrupting it is a real tactic rather than an excuse. Once things are going wrong, every extra minute spent inside that state tends to make the next thing worse, so stopping on purpose is how the slide ends. Nobody else is going to call the timeout for you.

When a day is clearly getting away from you, stop it deliberately for ten minutes: outside, water, a walk around the block, one call to somebody easy. Decide what the rest of the day actually has to contain, which is usually less than you planned.