Step 1: Don’t panic! (Douglas Adams had that exactly right.)

Step 2: Once you’re done panicking, admonish yourself for having panicked.

Step 3: Upon realizing that you’re wasting valuable time admonishing yourself for a completely natural reaction when you should be working on problem solving, you can now get busy on the important work of admonishing yourself for having wasted time admonishing yourself.

Step 4: Stop! This is crazy! Remember that beer that you’d put in the fridge and told yourself that you weren’t going to have until this problem had been solved? Yeah, that beer. Pull it out. Sit down. Open it. Drink it. Breathe.

Step 5: Start problem solving activities.

Step 6: That wasn’t so bad, right?

Step 7: Keep breathing.

Step 8: Notice that the world has not yet ended.

Step 9: Did I tell you to stop drinking that beer? No, I did not, so get back to it!

Step 10: Has the problem yet been resolved? If no, return to Step 5.

Step 11: Remember that second beer you’d put in the fridge earlier…?