The Five Buckets Daily Balance
Touch physical, mental, practical, social and spiritual every single day
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 80%
Sbeghen splits life into five buckets and aims to do at least one small thing in each, every day. The buckets are physical (moving your body), mental (looking after mental health, meditation, medication), practical (the boring admin like laundry and groceries that makes tomorrow easier), social (connection with people), and spiritual or emotional (hobbies, faith, anything that feeds the soul). The mechanism is deliberately low-effort: actions can be as small as walking to work, a five-minute meditation, making the bed, calling a friend, or knitting while watching TV. By guaranteeing daily minimum coverage across every domain, the method prevents the common failure where work crowds out everything else, and it makes the abstract goal of work-life balance concrete and repeatable.
Origin
Described by Jemma Sbeghen on Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal as the activity she used while working her nine-to-five to keep her life feeling like more than just her job.
Core principles
- 01Balance is a daily practice, not a distant destination
- 02Small daily actions beat occasional grand gestures
- 03A life is more than a job; each domain needs feeding
- 04Categorising life into a few buckets makes it manageable
How to run it
- 1
Cover physical
Move your body in some way, such as walking to work or a short workout.
Pro tip Habit-stack it onto an existing commute to remove friction.
- 2
Cover mental
Do something for your mental wellbeing: a check-in at the end of the day, a five-minute meditation, or taking prescribed medication.
- 3
Cover practical
Handle one piece of life admin such as laundry, groceries, or making your bed so tomorrow is a little easier.
Pro tip Pick the task that most reduces friction the next morning.
- 4
Cover social
Get some connection by calling or seeing a friend; it does not need to be a big time commitment.
- 5
Cover spiritual or hobby
Do something that feeds your soul: pray, read, or engage a hobby like knitting that quiets the mind.
Pro tip Combine buckets, e.g. knitting while watching TV covers a zombie activity with something restorative.
In the wild
Sbeghen found that watching TV felt like a zombie-like activity that drained her, so she took up knitting while watching. The knit hits the spiritual and mental buckets at once, turning otherwise passive downtime into something restorative and helping her fill the hours beyond work with things that keep her feeling healthy.
→ Passive evening time was converted into a bucket-filling, restorative habit.
Common mistakes
Making each action too big
Treating every bucket as a major time commitment guarantees you abandon the system on busy days.
Skipping the practical bucket
Ignoring boring admin lets small tasks pile up and makes the following days harder, undermining balance.
Is it for you?
Best for
Busy people in demanding jobs who feel their life has collapsed into work only.
Not ideal for
People who prefer weekly or thematic planning over daily box-ticking.
From the transcript
“I like to think about in terms of five buckets and each day you need to do something in each of those categories”
“we fill it in with the things that are going to keep us feeling healthy and keep us feeling like our life is more than…”
From the episode
Navigating Quarter-Life Crisis: Unpacking the Psychology of Your 20s - Jemma Sbeghen
Jemma Sbeghen