Your Bonus Materials
Three tools to use alongside the book, plus a guided audio. Tap any script to copy it to your clipboard.
Workplace Scripts Pack
These scripts are for the professional moments where the loop runs hardest. They are starting points, not lines to memorize. Adapt them to your voice.
Workplace Reset Checklist
Use it when the loop is running. Run through it in order. It takes about five minutes. You can do it at your desk, in your car, or anywhere you have a few minutes of privacy.
- Identify the loop. Which one is running right now? Meeting replay / Email spiral / Vague message catastrophe / Feedback spiral / Pre-visibility dread / Staying smaller than I want to.
- Name what the loop is protecting you from. In one sentence, what is the threat your nervous system is managing? Write it or say it: "I'm afraid the meeting made me look uncertain."
- Check the evidence. What actually happened? Stick to facts, not interpretations: "I gave the update. My manager asked one follow-up question. The meeting moved on."
- Name the most likely reality. Not the best case. The most probable one, based on actual evidence: "The update was received normally. The question was information-seeking, not concern."
- Use the body interrupt. Before you do anything else in your head: four counts in, six counts out. Sixty seconds. Just this.
- Close the file. Make a physical closing gesture. Say "done." You have completed the review. What comes next is the loop, not the review. You don't have to follow the loop.
- Take one small action. Send the reply, close the tab, step away from the screen, open the next task. Move.
7-Day Workplace Overthinking Reset
One focus per day. Small enough to actually do. Each day has one action. The point is consistent, low-friction engagement with the pattern over seven days.
At the end of the workday, write down every moment that triggered a loop. Don't editorialize, just list them. Look at the list and notice which loops were biggest. You're not trying to fix anything today. You are building a map.
The question for today: Which loop costs me the most energy in a typical week?
When the first loop starts today, use the body interrupt before you do anything else. Four counts in, six counts out, sixty seconds. Then name the loop. Then close the file. Once counts. You are proving to yourself that the interrupt is available.
The question for today: What did the loop feel like in the moment I interrupted it?
After the first meaningful meeting today, before the replay starts, write two things: one thing that went well, one thing you'd adjust. Then write: "Review complete." Close your notes. Every replay after this is the loop, not the review. You've already done the review.
The question for today: How long did it take before the replay tried to start anyway?
Every time you receive positive feedback today, write it down exactly as it came in. No editing. No "but." No context that makes it smaller. Read the list at the end of the day. Notice where the deflector tried to rewrite it. Let the list stand as written.
The question for today: What was hardest to write down without qualifying?
Identify one situation where ambiguity is running a loop. Use one of the scripts from Bonus 1 to get real information instead of generating scenarios. The goal is to replace the loop with an actual exchange.
The question for today: What was the actual response? How did it compare to what the loop was generating?
Before the first meeting today, set one intention: put your full attention on the content of the meeting, not on how you're coming across in it. Choose one external anchor and return to it when attention turns inward. After the meeting, do the two-point review.
The question for today: Was there a moment where I was fully in the room?
- Which loop ran most this week?
- Which loop ran shortest or felt most interruptible?
- Did the tools help? Which one helped most?
- What is one thing you did differently this week that you want to keep doing?
- Name one upcoming situation and the tool you'll use for it.
Body Interrupt Audio
Body Interrupt
A guided audio version of the body interrupt from the book. Use it before a difficult conversation, after a meeting that ran a loop, or any time you need to come down before you can think clearly. Works with or without headphones.