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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of IHeart Radio.

Good morning. This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is that if you are aiming to build some reflection time into your life,

you could try a very simple approach.

Identify what was good, what was not so good, and what you will do next.

Today's tip, like another this week, comes from Anne Laura LeCunsch's book, Tiny Experiments,

how to live freely in a goal-obsessed world.

She describes a quick five-minute reflection tool that she calls plus minus next.

As she puts it, it is a versatile starter kit for metacognition.

That is, the reflecting on life that many of us feel we should do more often.

Here's how it works.

You make three columns on paper or in a digital file.

The heading for the first column is Plus.

Anne Laura explains that this column is for what went well, what you accomplished, what gave you joy, and what you are grateful for.

Next is the minus column. This is for challenges, obstacles,

unexpected setbacks. You can also list missed opportunities, work that remains undone, mistakes,

areas of life you didn't attend to, and negative emotions. Finally, there is the next column. This is for

what you are going to do next, based on your reflections. In other words, given what was done and

undone, what was successful and unsuccessful in how you felt, what are your hopes and plans

for the near future?

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