Today, you are allowed to:

  • Wear the same thing you wore yesterday.
  • Eat the same thing you ate yesterday. Or the thing you ate every day last week.
  • Use the microwave instead of cooking.
  • Leave the dishes for tomorrow.
  • Cry at the commercial.
  • Leave the thing on read. You can reply when you have the words.
  • Watch the comfort show for the eighth time this month.
  • Nap at 2pm without earning it.
  • Cancel. Reschedule. Postpone. Skip.
  • Feel tired about something that “shouldn't” be tiring.
  • Not know why today is hard.
  • Skip the shower. (Or just wash your face. Or just brush your teeth. One counts.)
  • Eat cereal for dinner. Or lunch. Or both.
  • Lower the bar. Again. And again after that.
  • Change your mind halfway through something.

Things you are allowed to say:

  • “I'm having a rough day, I'll come back to this.”
  • “I don't have the spoons for that right now.”
  • “Can we do text instead of call?”
  • “I need to leave early.”
  • “No thank you.” (No reason required.)
  • “I'll need some time to think about this.”
  • “I don't actually know the answer.”
  • “I changed my mind.”
  • “That doesn't work for me.”
  • “I don't want to talk about it.”

Things you are allowed to skip today:

  • The news. All of it.
  • Social media, if it's making today harder.
  • The task that can wait until tomorrow. (Yes, that one. It can wait.)
  • The meeting you could have been an email.
  • The “should” you can't remember signing up for.
  • Feeling guilty about any of the above.

The ‘do nothing’ clause

If today is really bad — if you can't read the rest of this, if the bullet points look like too much — the whole permission slip collapses down to this:

You are allowed to exist today and do nothing else. You are allowed to be here without producing anything. You are allowed to take up space in the world without justifying it. That is a complete use of a day.

Tomorrow is another day, and it will be at least a little different. The letters are here if you want company. So is the Task Unsticker if you want to try just one tiny thing.

Or neither. Neither is also a complete answer.