The order runs from smallest to largest so you never reach for something you cannot do: five-minute restorers first, then low-energy tasks, then medium, then high. The social and outdoor marks come late because you need a full list in front of you before you can see which entries carry them, and they are the first two things dropped on a bad day. Finishing with placement is deliberate, since a menu that lives in a phone note is only read on days you already feel capable.
Step 1: Start with what works in five minutes
On a truly depleted day, this is the only section of the menu you will actually use, so it sets the ceiling for everything below it. The test is honesty, not aspiration: an entry qualifies only if it takes under five minutes and needs no setup, no other person, and no decision. Real examples people land on include lying on the floor with your legs up a wall, stepping outside for thirty seconds of cold air, one song played loud with your eyes closed, a glass of water drunk slowly at the sink. Write down what has already worked in the last month, not what sounds restorative. The common failure is listing a bath, a walk, or a nap: all three are good, none of them fit in five minutes, and none of them survive a bad day.
Step 2: Add three useful low-energy tasks
Step one gives you the floor, the five-minute saves for a day that has nothing left. This step covers the middle band: hours when you can do something useful but cannot think hard. The right entries need no judgment, no creativity, and no uninterrupted stretch, and they can be abandoned halfway without making things worse. Folding one basket of laundry, clearing the sink and the draining board, replying to the two easiest emails, sorting a paper pile into keep and bin, restocking the bathroom, wiping the kitchen counters. Notice that each one leaves a visible difference, which is the part that helps. Where this goes wrong is writing down tasks that sound small but carry a decision, such as drafting a message to your landlord, planning a trip, or choosing a gift. Those are medium-energy work wearing low-energy clothes.
Step 3: Name three mid-effort mood lifters
With the floor and the middle band already written, these three become a real choice rather than a dare, because you are not reaching up from empty, you are choosing between three levels. The medium band is where the gap between how an activity feels before you start and how you feel afterward is widest, and the fix is to pick by aftermath rather than appetite. Examples that hold up: a twenty-minute walk with something playing in your ears, cooking an actual meal instead of assembling one, a shower plus clean clothes, a slow bike ride, properly tidying one room. A quick filter is whether you can name two recent occasions when you did it and felt better afterwards. What people get wrong here is filling the slot with things that feel good during and change nothing after, like a scroll or a snack.
Step 4: Reserve three high-energy activities
These are the entries most often attempted on the wrong day, and when they fail they cast doubt on the entire menu, so they sit at the top of your awareness and the bottom of the ladder. Writing them down is less about doing them more and more about stopping them leaking into medium days, where they half-work and leave you worse. Pick three: the full gym session, the long run, the big cooking project you only enjoy when you have rhythm, a three-hour deep clean, a hard block of concentrated work, the phone call you have been putting off. The rule is that momentum has to already be there, because these are for spending it, not for generating it. Treating a high-energy item as a rescue for a flat day is the fastest route to deciding the whole system does not work.
Step 5: Mark one social and one outdoor entry
By now the menu runs from five minutes to three hours, so you can see which entries carry the two factors that most reliably shift a state: another person, and the outdoors. These are also the two categories people drop first on a low day, which is why the mark matters more than it looks. It is a flag to check, not an instruction to do. Circle one entry that involves someone, such as a call to a friend while you walk, a coffee, or a walk alongside another person. Circle one that gets you outside: stepping onto the pavement, sitting on a step, walking to the shop for one item. The version people get wrong is marking an event that involves others but demands full social performance, like a party, or an outdoor activity that needs the energy of a good day.
Step 6: Put it where you'll see it
A menu kept in a phone note gets opened on the days you already suspect you can manage something, which is exactly backwards. Paper on the inside of a cupboard door or beside the kettle gets seen on the days you would not think to look. The change this makes is in the question you ask. Instead of how much energy do I have today, which is a judgement you will usually get wrong and which tends to come back as not much, you read down the list and ask which of these can I do right now. That is the whole reason for building it in three levels. The failure mode is storing it somewhere searchable, or quietly rewriting it whenever your mood shifts, so the menu becomes another thing to maintain rather than a list to read.
The menu works because it replaces the daily argument about whether you have enough energy with a short list you can simply read down. A reminder in a phone gets dismissed and leaves no trace; a paper strip taped inside a cupboard door visibly gets shorter as you cut steps off, and it stays there until you finish.