I always get off the tram one stop early. This is not about exercise. Let me explain.
There is a particular kind of arrival — stepping off public transport directly onto your destination — that gives my body no time to switch modes. I’m still in tram-brain when I’m supposed to be in dinner-with-friends-brain, or work-brain, or quiet-evening-at-home-brain. The transitions catch me out and I spend the first twenty minutes feeling slightly behind myself.
Getting off one stop early gives me seven minutes. Sometimes nine. In those minutes I see one street, I notice the light, I overhear something, and by the time I arrive I am, more or less, where I am. It works in the rain too — maybe especially in the rain.
It is a very small thing. It is also one of the most useful small things I have ever figured out.