The Bare Minimum Plan for When You Feel Empty

The Problem with Advice

Most advice is for people who have energy. People who want to optimize their lives. It assumes a baseline of function. But what do you do when that baseline is gone? When you wake up and feel nothing. Not sadness, just a profound emptiness. A lack of motivation so complete that getting out of bed feels like climbing a mountain.

On those days, a to do list is a form of torture. The idea of going for a run or cooking a healthy meal is absurd. This kind of advice, however well intentioned, can make you feel worse. It highlights the gap between what you "should" do and what you can actually do. That gap can feel like a canyon.

The goal for these days needs to be different. It’s not about improvement or growth. It’s not about feeling better. The goal is simply to get through. To survive the day without digging a deeper hole. The plan for such a day needs to be so simple, so minimal, that it’s almost harder not to do it.

Lower the Bar Drastically

The first step is to change the objective. You are not trying to have a good day. You are not trying to be productive. You are trying to make it to tomorrow. That’s it. This reframe is important because it removes the crushing pressure of expectation.

When you feel empty, your capacity is near zero. Any plan that requires significant effort is doomed to fail. And that failure will only reinforce the feeling of helplessness. So we need to lower the bar. Not just a little. We need to lower it until it's resting on the floor. A plan that you can accomplish even when you are at ten percent capacity is the only kind of plan that will work.

The plan should not have more than three items. They should not be tasks in the traditional sense. They are more like gentle nudges. Tiny actions that remind you that you are a physical being in a physical world.

The Bare Minimum Plan

Here is a plan for the empty days. It has three parts. Move a little. Eat something. Notice something. You don’t have to do them at a specific time. You don’t have to do them well. You just have to do each one once.

Move a Little

This is not exercise. The goal is not fitness or burning calories. The goal is simply to change your physical state. Inertia is a powerful force, both physically and mentally. Staying in one position for hours on end reinforces the feeling of being stuck.

Moving a little means just that. Stand up from the bed or the chair. Walk to the window and look outside for a moment. Stretch your arms over your head for five seconds. That’s it. You have succeeded. The point is to break the spell of stillness with the smallest possible expenditure of energy. It is a tiny act of agency in a day that feels like it has none. It is a whisper that says "I can still move".

Eat Something

Your brain and body need fuel to operate. When you feel numb, the signals for hunger can get lost. Or the multi step process of preparing food feels overwhelming. Again, the goal here is not nutrition. It’s not about a balanced meal.

The goal is to put some form of energy into your body. A piece of fruit. A handful of nuts. A slice of toast. Even just a glass of water is a good start. The act is purely mechanical. It’s a box to check. You are giving your body the most basic resource it needs to continue functioning. You can worry about vitamins and vegetables on a different day, a day when you have more resources. Today is about fuel.

Notice Something

Emptiness is an intensely internal state. It can feel like being trapped inside your own head with the volume turned all the way down. The third action is about making a brief, low stakes connection with the world outside your thoughts.

This is not a formal meditation practice. It is simpler. Pick one of your five senses and use it for a few seconds. Look closely at the way light hits a wall. Listen for a sound you don’t normally hear, like a distant siren or a bird. Feel the texture of the fabric of your sleeve against your skin.

The goal is to find one tiny piece of sensory data from the outside world. It is a small reminder that there is a world out there, and you are in it. It can pierce the thick fog of numbness for just a moment. And sometimes, a moment is enough to get you to the next moment.

Why This Works

This plan will not make you happy. It will not cure depression. It is not a long term solution. It is a tool for survival. A lifeline for when you are treading water.

It works by focusing on the achievable. On days when you feel you can do nothing, this plan offers three things you almost certainly can do. Each one is a small victory. A tiny piece of evidence against the overwhelming feeling that you are powerless. Completing them provides no big rush, just a quiet sense of not having failed. And on these days, not failing is a huge win.

These actions also ground you. They connect you to your body and your environment. When your mind is a difficult place to be, anchoring yourself in the physical can provide a small measure of stability. It bypasses the complexity of thought and emotion and deals only with the simple reality of the physical world.

Thinking and feeling can be exhausting. And talking about it can feel like another high effort task. But sometimes speaking the truth of the day out loud, even to no one, can be helpful. Recording a short note about how you feel can make the feeling less heavy than when it is trapped inside your head. It’s another small action. It doesn’t fix anything, but it acknowledges what is happening. Acknowledgment is often the first step toward anything else.

So on the days you feel empty, forget the grand plans. Forget optimization and self improvement. Just try to move a little, eat something, and notice something. It might be all you can do. And for today, that is enough.

Give it a try for yourself with the prompt below.