Know your bad hours. If you’re always snappy before lunch, don’t start serious conversations at 11:45.

You are not the same person all day. Hunger and tiredness make you shorter with people and quicker to take things the wrong way, and nothing about the conversation itself has changed. Knowing your own schedule is more practical than trying to be patient through it. The timing of a conversation is something you can usually choose.

Work out your two worst windows this week by noticing when you snap. Then move anything that matters out of them: have the serious talk after lunch, and leave the hard message for later. If something has to happen at a bad hour, say so at the start.