The evening minute

The second minute is at night, and it's the one that actually changes things. The morning aims; the evening checks. Without the check, the aim drifts — you keep meaning to do better and never find out whether you did.

Seneca kept the habit nightly. He would lay the whole day out before himself before sleep, render an account of it, and look at it plainly — hiding nothing, since he knew there was nothing worth hiding from himself (Letters 83, paraphrase). Not to flog himself. To see it. Where did I lose my temper for nothing? Where did I do the thing I said I would? What did I let the day talk me out of?

It works the same whether your day was spent at a register, in a cab, on a ward, or chasing a toddler. You're not grading the day. You're the colleague who tells you the truth without insult and without flattery — the standing appointment we named on Day 1. Two questions, one minute: what went right, what I'd do once more, what I'd not repeat.

The day you reviewed teaches tomorrow. The day you slept through teaches nothing.