Taking five or ten minutes at the beginning or end of each day, can transform your life, reduce stress and make you happier and more productive.

I saw a British study in the Harvard Business Review in which commuters who were encouraged through text messages to plan their upcoming day were happier, less burned-out and more productive than a similar group who did not do pre-planning.

All of us complain about feeling too stress. Here’s a way to reduce it:

• Take five to fifteen minutes at the beginning or end of the day to think about the day ahead or how the current day went.
• Reserve this time the same way you would set aside time for a project or meeting.
• As the Harvard study suggested, even thinking about the day ahead or just concluded in a positive reflective way (say on the commute home), can be as beneficial.
• A short investment in time is like a play from the sidelines sent in by the coach to tell the quarterback what to do next. Just doing without thinking about it is stress we can eliminate and now there is research to back it.

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