
It's a classic technique from clinical psychology, proposed by Thomas Borkovec's team in the 1980s: instead of wrestling with every worry the moment it shows up, book it an appointment. Fifteen or twenty minutes a day, at the same time and in the same place. That is the moment to worry properly; for the rest of the day, when something ambushes you, you write it on a list and tell it: see you at six.
It sounds like a silly trick and it's the opposite. First, because postponing is not suppressing: the worry is on record and knows it will get its turn, so it stops knocking on the door every ten minutes. Second, because of what happens at six: half the notes, read in cold blood, are no longer frightening; they solved themselves or were smoke. And the ones that remain, once you look them in the eye and in writing, tend to turn into something far more manageable: a task.
Clinical trials have backed this for decades: less rumination, better sleep. Worry, like almost everything, works best on office hours.