Doing the three jobs properly

If the tin is going to stop doing the three jobs, something else has to do them, because the needs don't go away. This chapter takes each in turn. Apart from the research already described, the suggestions are mine.

Take reward first. What you want when you finish something hard is for the finishing to register. The simplest way is to stop for a moment and register it. When you've pressed send, don't move straight to the kettle or the next task. Sit back and look at what you did. Say to yourself, in words, that the figures are done and that they were hard. It takes ten seconds and it feels slightly silly, and it's more than the digestive ever gave you.

Then mark it in a way that lasts. Tell someone. A message to a colleague or your partner saying that the quarterly figures have gone does what the biscuit was pretending to do, which is to make the achievement exist outside your own head. Tick it off a written list with a proper pen stroke. At the end of the week, look at the ticks.

And take the break. Much of what the eleven o'clock biscuit gives you is permission to stop for ten minutes, and you can have that without the biscuit. Make the tea, sit down with it somewhere that isn't your desk, and drink it while it's hot. Step outside if you can. The break is a fair wage for the work.

For bigger achievements, choose bigger rewards that really are rewards, meaning things you wouldn't otherwise have. When a month-long project ends you might book the long lunch with a friend, or take the afternoon off, or buy the book you've been wanting.

Next is the pick-me-up. When the wall arrives at quarter past three, the first thing to try is Thayer's walk. Ten brisk minutes, outdoors if possible, gave his volunteers two hours of better energy. If you can't leave the building, climb the stairs a few times, or walk the longest corridor and back.

Drink a glass of water. Open a window or move to a different room. Switch for twenty minutes to a task that needs less concentration, since the low point passes by itself within the hour.

If you're hungry, eat. This is important, because sometimes the afternoon wall is plain hunger, particularly if lunch was small or early. Hunger deserves food and not a token. A piece of fruit, a handful of nuts, some cheese and an oatcake, a slice of toast, or a yoghurt will all carry you to dinner. Whole fruit is sweet, and the NHS doesn't count the sugar inside it towards your daily limit, so an apple or a banana at three o'clock is squarely within the rule of this book.

Then look at the causes. If the wall arrives every day, consider your lunch, your sleep, and whether you've moved at all since nine. Those are where the slump comes from, and they can be changed.

The last job is comfort. Start with what the comfort food experiments showed. The feeling will ease by itself within a few minutes, and nothing is required of you for that to happen. Knowing this changes the moment. When you put the phone down and reach for the tin, you feel as if something must be done about the feeling right now. In fact you can sit with it for ten minutes and let it pass.

If you want to do something, do something that is comforting and doesn't end in a verdict. A hot drink counts, and tea made properly is a comfort in its own right. So does a bath or a blanket. You could step outside for five minutes of air, or stroke the dog, or put on music that suits the mood.

Better still, tell someone. Ring a friend, or tell your partner what Claire said and how it made you feel. Being heard is what comfort mostly means, and after it you feel less alone with the problem, which no biscuit manages.

And if the upset is about something that recurs, spend ten minutes on the thing itself once you're calmer. Write down what you'd like to say to Claire. Decide one step you could take about your mum's care. It's the only one of these suggestions that means next month's phone call might go better.