Flickr/Basheer Tome We all have our bad days. It's frustrating when 5 p.m. rolls around and our to-do lists have barely changed.

The work piles up, the next day is stress-packed and intimidating, and it all cascades to the next day and the next. Before you know it, you've wasted a week or more, all because of one bad day.

It can be hard to recover from a bad workday, but a large part of that is simply not identifying the cause of the problem and fixing it. When you're immersed in the problem, you're going to find it hard to see the forest through the trees, right?

If you can dial back and spend a moment of reflection, though, you can get off on the right foot tomorrow and avoid letting one bad day break you.

1. Figure out why you were unproductive

Usually, when you're having an unproductive day, there's a reason for it. Maybe you didn't sleep well. Maybe you missed a meal, and you're sluggish without it. Maybe you keep getting distracted by coworkers.

Often, the exact trigger is difficult to pinpoint, possibly because it's a slow build of stress leading to feelings of burnout. If this is the case, you may need to take a mental-health day. Sure, you might miss a deadline, but it's better to be a little late than it is to quit entirely.

If you can identify a specific trigger, you can take steps to minimize it in the future.

2. Take steps to minimize distractions

If you have an office, you can close the door and put up a sign. If you're working online, you can temporarily block Facebook and the other common timewasters. Sometimes all it takes is a good pair of noise-canceling headphones and a playlist of unobtrusive music.

3. Identify a simple task and finish it

You need to get the ball rolling in some way, and the easiest way is to get something done. Digging into the most complicated or time-sensitive project first might set you up for another day where you have nothing crossed off your list. Surely, that project can wait for 30 minutes while you take care of something simple you can cross off your list.

One auxiliary tip here is to do something outside the norm, ideally something physical. Something as simple as cleaning and organizing your desk can get you moving, energize you, and start momentum that can carry you through to the next task.

4. Give yourself a timer

There are two ways you can use timers to encourage more work. The first is to use something like an egg timer or a stopwatch. Tell yourself that five minutes is a nice, discrete chunk of work. You force yourself to work for five minutes, and when the timer is up, you take a break. As long as there isn't an alarm at the end, chances are you'll be engrossed in the work by the end of the five minutes and won't even notice your time is up.

An alternative is the Pomodoro method, which is a common time-management technique. The gist of it is to work for 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break, and repeat four times, at which point you take a longer break. You can adapt it to your own schedule, but the core on-and-off time management method is the important part.

5. Remind yourself it's just work

Companies love to brand themselves as more than just producers of commodities. They create mottos about changing the world, saving lives, and making life better. This is branding to appeal to consumers, of course, but it's also propaganda to encourage as much out of you as they can get. How can you take a break when your work is saving lives?

Not to get too nihilistic, but in the modern global society, we're all cogs in a larger machine. Remember that machines need well-maintained, functional parts to operate at capacity. Take care of yourself so you can operate the way you want to.

6. Periodically assess and relax if necessary

In order to avoid falling back into a hole of stress and burnout, you should periodically step back and assess how you're doing. At the start, try to do this once an hour. You'll start to notice if you're fatigued, hungry, thirsty, or distracted. Address your needs and return to work. Once you build the habit of taking care of yourself, you can reduce your self-reflection to once a day or so.

James Parsons is a content marketing influencer, entrepreneur, and writer. He writes for large publishers including Entrepreneur, Inc., and The Huffington Post. You can contact him on his website or on his Twitter profile.