The story of an underrated, humble habit: self check-in

A little portal (and a challenge) to escape that ever present 'hamster wheel of urgency, outrage, and sensationalism'

On an overcast Thursday in November 2022, Kumar¹ met me, visibly disturbed. He had lost his job that Monday. A job he was invested in, and spent 2 years, working hard at. Often aspects of the role would challenge him and he would try hard and rise to each of these. Kumar was expecting a promotion in the organisation’s upcoming appraisal cycle. And a holiday with his wife and daughters in late Feb. In just a matter of a day, his world had fallen apart.

Kumar was tense, frustrated, dejected. His mind racing around like bullet trains without tracks. Finding a new job, monthly expenses, school fees, home loans, and repeatedly questioning his own self worth. Trains on endless loops. Loops that kept him up sleepless - reinforcing a vicious cycle in his increasingly exhausted brain.

But most of all Kumar was angry.

Angry isn’t something I could ever associate with Kumar. Quiet, humble, understated, with a shy smile - it was an antithesis of all I had found him to be in our multiple interactions.

We explored the different perspectives, and paradigms of what he was going through but we kept coming back to the deep anger. It was like a volcano had awakened inside of this kind, gentle, patient man - and it refused to calm down.

At the end of the conversation, one thing that Kumar decided to explore was daily self check-ins. At the start and end of the day.

Photo by Chris Trinh on Unsplash

The self check-in

For those of us who work in large (and possibly bureaucratic) organisations, check-ins at regular intervals with a manager or a few key stakeholders is often the norm. Check-in conversations are a way for the managers to ask key questions—for instance, ‘Did we do the work? Are we behind schedule? Are we stuck? Do we need help? Is there something troubling us?’ These are usually based in the context of the workplace and projects.

A self check-in in its simplest form is spending a few minutes - as short as 2 minutes to check-in with yourself . With your current state of emotions and feelings. That is just 2 mins out of 1440 minutes every day, that we all get or 0.13% of our day.

Our emotions and feelings are extremely powerful invisible undercurrents that drive a lot of our visible life. I wrote on these around the idea of evaluating the year past - an ECG of your Feelings and Emotions.

The self check-in spectrum

Self check-in can be as simple as a quick 2-minute quiet time with yourself to peek inside: ‘What am I feeling right now? Why is that so?’ And this is what makes it effective: you record it somewhere—either on an app, or notebook, or even post-its. It is effective for the simple reason that one is externalising one’s inner world and able to see them in a new perspective.

“The most immediate benefit of capturing content outside our heads is that we escape the ‘reactivity loop’—the hamster wheel of urgency, outrage, and sensationalism” - Tiago Forte

Or you could spend more time to explore inside. Maybe 3-5 minutes. Diving into more of the whys behind the what. Making notes. And you could do it twice a day. Or on difficult days, maybe 3 to 4 times.

You could also use the ready made scales (e.g., awful to great) that apps like Insight Timer and How We Feel provide. How we Feel is visually rich, and has helpful tips and ways to keep keep track of events, people, place connected around a feeling. But it may also be described as a paradox of plenty. I like Insight Timer’s simplicity, and have done long unbroken spells of self-checkins on that. At this point in time, there are many such apps that work and if you do discover a favourite, please share with us.

A gentle drizzle

In one of my earlier posts, one of my 3 wishes for you in 2023 was all about enhancing self awareness. In fact, the self check-in tool is so tiny and atomic—that one could easily dismiss it. However, it happens to be highly effective and powerful in actually enabling us in creating greater self awareness despite it’s simplicity, and the fact that it continues to be under-rated.

Unlike the powerful tropical rains, this is a gentle consistent drizzle that slowly, consistently washes away the dirt and grime, clarifies and sharpens our focus. Sustained over days and weeks, you begin to see yourself with a new pair of eyes.

36 check-ins later

When I met Kumar 18 days later - the first thing he reported was that he was sleeping better. The trains in his mind had slowed down. The worries and self doubt were still there. But the anger wasn’t consuming him. He had an epiphany. Actually two.

He had kept his word and consistently done his daily, twice-a-day checkins, using an unused school note book, ‘borrowed’ from his elder daughter. The first page had no words and the entire page was full of violently drawn unruly, zig-zag lines. The pressure on some lines and points had almost torn through the page. In hindsight, he said that it felt for him. Though the overwhelming urge on his first check-in was to throw the notebook out of the window, he felt glad he didn’t do so.

In his daily self check-ins, Kumar reflected on the current state of his internal landscape. And most importantly, the target and source of his anger. He began to question more and more of it—Was he angry at his manager? Was it the organisation? Was it the colleagues? Perhaps, it was those who continued to work for the organisation? Or, was it himself?’ The questions were many. Interestingly, he came up with two insights: 1) He might have been equally angry and worried if he had stayed back. 2) He was angriest at something that wasn’t exactly there: the organisation. The org wasn’t the office, the cafe, the furniture, the name or the logo, but the collection of everything that symbolised his workplace—especially the people he enjoyed working with, the products he had helped shape over the years and the processes he had willingly signed up for.

It was a classic paradox—there was an organisation, and there wasn’t. It was an insight that had dawned on him about 22 check-ins later and Kumar had a big laugh. His family hadn’t seen him laugh for weeks. Even if the joke wasn’t really funny.

The 40 self check-in challenge

So, are you game for a new challenge—20 days and 40 self check-ins? And you could continue for the next 30, 45 or 60 days, to gain deeper insights.

All you need is 2-3 mins at the start and end of each day. You could self check-in while you’re stirring your cup of coffee or tea, or winding down for bed. The simple steps are all up there, and you can use either offline methods like a notebook, post-its, a white-board or one of the many apps out there. If you do, do share your experiences—it would be interesting to know how it goes, since each experience will be different.

If you have a unique story to share at the end of the challenge or decide to stick on longer, I am all ears. I will do a quarterly round up in March, and would love to feature your story, if you’re okay sharing.

So stay curious, dive in and explore your inner landscape!

1. Not his real name, also some details have been changed